illi News - Arbutus Medical Raises C.3M to Accelerate Growth of Surgical Workflow Solutions Outside the OR

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The company is defining a new category, providing surgeons with innovative surgical instruments and streamlined workflows for the Emergency Department (ED) and other decentralized settings

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - illiNews -- Arbutus Medical today announced it has closed an oversubscribed C$9.3M growth financing led by Crédit Mutuel Equity, with participation from the CU Healthcare Innovation Fund — the strategic venture arm of University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus, a key customer of Arbutus Medical — along with follow-on investments from Nimbus Synergies, ThresholdImpact, Consortium MEDTEQ+, GenomeBC, and other existing investors.

This financing follows a year of strong commercial momentum for Arbutus and positions the company to continue rapidly scaling its commercial footprint. Over the past 12 months, Arbutus has grown its U.S. customer base by 80%, from approximately 50 to nearly 90 hospitals, reflecting accelerating demand across trauma and emergency care settings.

Arbutus' flagship system for skeletal traction, TrakPak®, is now deployed in 56 Level I Trauma Centers, representing approximately 23% of all Level I facilities in the U.S.

In busy trauma environments, TrakPak eliminates steps in the pre-surgical workflow that can delay care by 45 minutes up to several hours, allowing teams to initiate skeletal traction faster and reduce operational friction across the emergency department.

Beyond skeletal traction, Arbutus is pursuing a broader vision to build a portfolio of workflow solutions that fundamentally improve how surgical procedures are performed outside the operating room, with the emergency department as the first and primary focus.

Each year, U.S. Emergency Departments (EDs) serve approximately 155 million patients, and nearly 64 million of those visits involve at least one clinical procedure (source: CDC). Despite this scale, much of procedural care outside the operating room still relies on fragmented tools, improvised workflows, and institutional workarounds. Arbutus is initially focusing on eight indications representing approximately 8 million patients, underscoring that the company is only beginning to scratch the surface of a larger, underserved market. Beyond the ED, similar challenges exist in minor procedure rooms, field surgery, and ambulatory care settings.

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"Workflows for surgical procedures outside the OR are often incredibly inefficient. In a setting like the Emergency Department, delays can negatively impact patient care and be very costly for hospitals. This is a massively underserved market," said Lawrence Buchan, CEO of Arbutus Medical. "We are filling this gap by building the market's first portfolio of procedure kits – true workflow solutions – specifically designed to streamline surgical workflows outside the OR, starting with the ED."

Arbutus Medical's platform approach is intended to help hospitals standardize high-quality, efficient care outside the OR — and, over time, potentially help shift appropriate procedures to lower-cost settings.

Proceeds from the financing will be used to expand Arbutus' U.S. commercial team, invest in clinical education programs, and scale manufacturing capacity to meet the highest standards of quality and reliability for its customers. The company will also launch new products and expand its robust IP portfolio (currently including three issued patents and 14 applications pending).

"We see Arbutus as an innovation platform primed to address a large, overlooked healthcare segment," said Robert Ritlop at Crédit Mutuel Equity. "The company has a clear multi-product vision and strong clinical traction. Their rapid adoption across leading trauma centers demonstrates both the market's urgency to address this problem and the strength of their solutions. We're excited to support the team as they scale commercially, expand their product portfolio, and help define a new category of care delivery outside the operating room."

About Arbutus Medical Inc.

Arbutus Medical Inc. is a privately held ISO13485 and MDSAP-certified medical device company building the first portfolio of surgical workflow solutions designed specifically for procedures performed outside the OR. Since its founding in 2014, Arbutus products have supported more than 140,000 procedures and are used across 40 countries. Its first two procedure kits, which streamline bedside orthopaedic trauma procedures and save valuable time in the ED, are now used in over 20% of all US Level I Trauma Centers. Beyond the ED, the company is positioned to facilitate the decentralization of surgery into procedure rooms, ambulatory surgery centers, and low-resource settings, with capabilities to provide surgeons with sterile-ready power, purpose-built sterile-ready instruments, and simplified workflows – all in one procedure kit. Arbutus maintains a growing intellectual property portfolio with three issued patents and 14 applications pending. Based in Vancouver, Canada, the company was named the "Emerging Medtech Company of the Year" by Life Sciences BC in 2025. Learn more at arbutusmedical.com and follow the company on LinkedIn.

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About Crédit Mutuel Equity

Crédit Mutuel Equity encompasses all investment capital activities of Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale: Development Capital, Transmission Capital, and Innovation Capital.

Crédit Mutuel Equity provides capital support to business leaders at all stages of their company's development—from startup to succession—by providing the means and time necessary to implement their transformation projects. Crédit Mutuel Equity brings together over 350 leaders who share their convictions and questions within a true network of entrepreneurs, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their project's nature, benefits from the experience of others. By investing its own capital (€5 billion), Crédit Mutuel Equity finances business projects with timelines adapted to their development strategy, both in Europe and in North America. For more information, visit creditmutuel-equity.eu.