About Worldheart

Founded in 1996, WorldHeart is a public company headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah (USA), with additional offices located in Oakland, California (USA), and in Herkenbosch (The Netherlands). Its registered office is Delaware, USA. Its stock trades on the NASDAQ National Market (ticker symbol: WHRT).

WorldHeart's mechanical circulatory support devices assist the failing heart to pump blood. These pumps are also called VADs (Ventricular Assist Devices). WorldHeart's VADs are used to support the left ventricle, which takes oxygenated blood from the lungs and pumps it to and through the tissues and organs. As a result of this heavy and constant demand, the left ventricle does most of the pumping work and therefore fails more often. Long-term support of the left ventricle alone is estimates to serve more than 80% of eligible patients. In this application, these devices are called LVADs (Left Ventricular Assist Devices).

WorldHeart's VADs have been successfully used for the following indications for heart failure patients:

  1. Bridge To Transplant (BTT)
  2. Bridge To Recovery (BTR)
  3. Destination Therapy (DT)

Previously, WorldHeart has provided a pulsatile ventricular assist device, which mimics the action of the natural heart. It is now focusing its efforts on rotary blood pumps that continuously flow to assist the circulation.

Until 2008, WorldHeart has provided an approved, standard-setting, first-generation pulsatile device, the Novacor I LVAS, which has provided relief to more than 1,800 patients for almost a quarter-century. The Novacor LVAS is one of only three implantable pulsatile blood pumps approved to date by the FDA for sale in the United States. It was also approved for sale in Europe under the CE mark, as well as in Japan.

The fourth-generation Levacor VAD is a next-generation blood pump technology under development that demonstrates WorldHeart's ongoing commitment to better patient outcomes and satisfaction. About a quarter of the size of the Novacor LVAS, it is implanted in the same familiar and proven anatomic location as the Novacor. However, the Levacor VAD is designed to provide greater clinical benefits due to key innovations such as complete magnetic levitation of its only moving part, the rotor. This device has performed well in its first-in-human feasibility implants in Europe in 2006. It is expected to start clinical trials in the United States in the second half of 2009.

The Levacor VAD is depicted implanted inside the chest of a patient in the figure on the right, and connected to the natural heart. Blood enters the LVAD through a tube (also called the inflow cannula) inserted into the tip of the left ventricle, and is delivered at systemic pressure into the ascending aorta through another tube (commonly known as the outflow graft).

Additional technologies under development are:

  1. A Minimally Invasive VAD (MiVAD) for less-sick heart failure patients.
  2. A PediaFlow VAD for newborns with congenital heart defects or heart failure

Please browse the Technologies section for more information on WorldHeart's next-generation technologies.