Devices

WorldHeart expects to become a VAD-market leader with not one, but two, potentially disruptive devices: (1) the minimally invasive MiFlow™ VAD, designed to provide partial to full circulatory support in both early-stage and late-stage heart-failure patients and (2) the PediaFlow® VAD, designed for pediatric patients. Ventricular Assist Devices – VADs – are surgically implanted to support a patient's own heart by supplementing part of its cardiac output. WorldHeart is a pioneer in VAD therapy for treating heart failure, having developed the Novacor VAD, one of the first commercially viable VADs designed to meet the unmet needs of patients with end-stage heart failure; and the first fully magnetically levitated device, the Levacor® VAD.

"Currently marketed products have not sufficiently addressed the unacceptably high complication rates associated with VAD therapy, and therein lies the opportunity for our first product, MiFlow VAD," says CEO Alex Martin, who was previously President of the North American Region and Corporate VP at Edwards Lifesciences. "For example, data presented at the American Heart Association's annual scientific meeting in November 2010 reported complication rates of 32%, 27% and 16% related to infection, bleeding, and disabling stroke, respectively. We believe these complication rates can be improved substantially. As patient survival improves with the use of VADs, surgeons will naturally direct their attention to the differences in complication rates when choosing one VAD over another – especially important given the 5 to 10 years of expected use for a given VAD," adds Martin. "MiFlow has been designed precisely with the goal of providing improved blood handling and changing the standard of care in VAD Bridge-to-Transplant therapy."