The Finnish Social Insurance Institution (Kela) is responsible for social insurance and also reimburses some of the costs of visits and treatments from private care providers. Finland also has a unique occupational health care system where employers are obliged by law to provide preventive health care services to their employees. Most employers also choose to offer more healthcare services than the law requires. This has created a significant market for occupational health services in the country.

“Of course, Finland's system of statutory occupational health care for all employees is a factor that benefits us. Our long-term goal is to obtain reimbursement codes that allows patient insurance to cover the costs of the K.O.S-treatment, similar to what we have obtained in Saudi Arabia and partly in Italy,” says Anders Weilandt, CEO of Chordate.

Private healthcare providers in Finland
The Finnish health system is based on public health services to which all residents are entitled. There are many private health care providers in the country, providing over a quarter of all social and health care services. Two of the largest healthcare companies in Finland are Terveystalo and Mehiläinen.

Terveystalo provides hospital care for individuals, companies, insurance companies and the public sector. The company has 370 clinics in Finland, with approximately 25 of them operating in the field of neurology. Terveystalo's subsidiary Feelgood is Sweden's third largest occupational health care provider with approximately 8,000 corporate customers in Sweden.

Mehiläinen has over 2.1 million customers annually, of which approximately 590,000 are covered by occupational health services. The company has clinics and medical centres in about 500 locations around Finland, with about 70 active neurologists.

Chordate in Finland
In October 2022, Chordate began the market introduction in Finland through an agreement with a market consultant with extensive experience combined with a wide network of contacts. The Finnish market already has some knowledge of Chordate's migraine treatment as the company's recently completed migraine study was carried out at four clinics in Finland, three of which belong to Terveystalo.

“The study result and the fact that we have established knowledge in Finland is a bit of a dream scenario because it helps to legitimize the commercialization. In a market with private health insurance solutions, like the Finnish one, the path to decision is much shorter and more manageable for us compared to markets with only publicly funded health reimbursement models,” says Anders Weilandt, CEO of Chordate.

“K.O.S is now starting to establish itself as a medical treatment in Italy and we expect that the number of clinics offering K.O.S for chronic rhinitis will continue to increase. The standstill of almost two years that Covid19 caused in Italy was longer than in most markets, the accumulated healthcare backlog is still tangible. Vedise's long experience and large network of clinics are also of great value in their ongoing work to introduce K.O.S as a treatment for chronic migraine”, says Chordate CEO Anders Weilandt.

Chordate and Vedise began their collaboration at the end of 2018 when the parties signed an exclusive distribution partnership for Italy. The K.O.S treatment is now offered for chronic rhinitis in eleven clinics, and the plan is to increase the number of clinics further in 2023. Since August 2022, Vedise is investing large resources in being able to start offering K.O.S also for chronic migraine.

“The positive results from the migraine study have given further momentum to this project. Italy is an important market for us, partly because it’s one of Europe's largest medtech markets and partly because we expect that K.O.S will soon be offered both for chronic rhinitis and chronic migraine in the country. That makes Italy a strong example of proof-of-concept for us”.

Vedise is a well-established player in the Italian market, having supplied medical devices to public hospitals and private clinics for over 30 years. The distributor has a close collaboration with the medical profession.

Read more about Vedise Hospital: https://vedise.com/

See where Vedise offers K.O.S for chronic rhinitis in Italy: https://vedisekos.it/ (the eleventh clinic, located in Rome, is not yet marked on the map).

To register for the web conference, register via the following link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3690216538735029342

The number of places is limited, so we recommend registering well in advance to secure a place.

A recording of the web conference will be available after the conference on the company's website www.chordate.com and on Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance's YouTube channel.