abc programme transcript

Ventracor Limited 126 Greville Street Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia
T +61 2 9406 3100 F +61 2 9406 3101 W www.ventracor.com
ABN 46 003 180 372
Ventracor’s ‘Artificial Heart’ Receives National Recognition
Sydney, 2 July 2004: Australian heart company Venrtracor Limited (ASX:
VCR) today welcomed a current affairs item broadcast on national ABC TV
Thursday evening referring to its VentrAssist™ artificial heart device and
patients taking part in the pilot trial at The Alfred hospital in Melbourne.
Ventracor Chief Executive Officer, Colin Sutton PhD, welcomed the ABC’s
balanced and accurate coverage of it’s VentrAssist™ system which is poised
to begin a wider clinical trial soon.
The ABC TV report was broadcast to an estimated national audience of one
million people. A transcript is provided.
Ventracor Limited can not publish patient names in line with clinical trial
regulations and The Privacy Act.
Transcript ABC TV 7:30 Report Thursday 1 July 2004
PRESENTER KERRY O'BRIEN: In a Melbourne hospital tonight, a man once
on the verge of death due to a severe heart condition is now sitting up and
hopefully taking the first steps towards recovery.
He is the sixth person to receive an Australian-made artificial heart, under a
pilot trial.
The three decade long race to develop a workable artificial heart has been
dogged by flawed mechanics and infection.
But doctors believe this new device can lengthen the lives of thousands of
patients around the world who otherwise would have no hope.
Mary Gearin spoke to three recipients of what's billed as world beating, heart
beating technology..Ventracor Limited 126 Greville Street Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia
T +61 2 9406 3100 F +61 2 9406 3101 W www.ventracor.com
ABN 46 003 180 372
REPORTER MARY GEARIN: This man has no pulse. It was taken away by
the technology that saved his life. That whirring you hear is
(PATIENT NAME)‘s heart.
PATIENT: I call it me washing machine. If I put my hand there, any time I can
feel it going. You look nice enough to be able to put your hand on me if you
want to feel my washing machine running.
MARY GEARIN: (Laughs) That's quite an offer.
PATIENT: Well, there you go. You won't get many like that.
MARY GEARIN: In fact, you can get only four offers like that worldwide.
As part of a trial at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital, (PATIENT NAME) and three
other patients are living with artificial hearts based on a continuously spinning
rotor.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID KAYE, ALFRED HOSPITAL: So the
pump is continuously pumping blood, unlike the heart, of course, which fills
and empties and, as such, creates a pulse.
So it is an interesting phenomenon. When you first see these patients, you go
to feel a pulse and, of course, they don't have one but here they are sitting up,
talking to you, feeling fine.
MARY GEARIN: Seventy-four-year-old (PATIENT NAME) says in a way he's
just celebrated his first birthday.
It was just a year and two days ago that he received his new heart after more
than a decade of severe heart problems.
How do you compare your life before with now?
PATIENT: You can't really. It's like chocolate and toffee.
MARY GEARIN: The only thing slowing (PATIENT NAME) down now is a
backpack powering his mechanical heart.
It's driven by a rotor suspended in a magnetic field, receiving blood from his
own heart, returning it to the aorta.
The pump is inserted just below the left side of the rib cage, with a cable
coming out the patient's right side.
It connects to batteries that beep before needing to be changed every four
hours, or the patient can be plugged straight into the mains, which has led to
at least one odd restaurant scene for (PATIENT NAME), another recipient,
and his wife..Ventracor Limited 126 Greville Street Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia
T +61 2 9406 3100 F +61 2 9406 3101 W www.ventracor.com
ABN 46 003 180 372
PATIENT: So, we walked in and calmly asked the waitress, "Could we be
seated near a power plug? And there was a somewhat astonished look on her
face.”
MARY GEARIN: The VentrAssist is called a third-generation device, differing
from earlier, unwieldy models that agitate the blood more quickly and have
wearable parts, typically causing three major problems.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DON ESMORE, ALFRED HOSPITAL: They are,
basically, mechanical failure, blood clots forming in the pump or the pump
stopping due to blood clots clogging the mechanism or the device gets
infected and the patients get major complications from that, which can't be
curable because it's an implanted system.
And we really have not had any of those.
MARY GEARIN: How long do you think it can live?
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID KAYE: That's a good question.
Certainly in experimental tests the device has been running continuously for
over two years.
MARY GEARIN: (PATIENT NAME), (PATIENT NAME), (PATIENT NAME)
and another patient implanted just last week are the success stories for this
trial. But two others died, according to the doctors for reasons unrelated to the
device.
After the second death in March, shares in the manufacturer Ventracor fell
sharply, but the hospital resumed the trial after an internal review of its
processes.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID KAYE: Look, I think we're certainly
disappointed and sad that those patients didn't make it through.
I think, unfortunately, one has to recognise that for patients who are gravely ill
coming into any device that this is not a cure all.
MARY GEARIN: The company - and the technology - will get a further chance
to prove their worth in a trial starting this month in other hospitals around
Australia, as well as in NZ and the UK.
The trials will continue to target elderly patients who would have no prospect
of receiving heart transplants, but who could then perhaps live on this device
for some years.
PATIENT: Fantastic - because without it, I'm not here.
MARY GEARIN: Each device is still handmade at a cost of up to $100,000,
and Associate Professor Esmore acknowledges some may see this as a
luxury therapy..Ventracor Limited 126 Greville Street Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia
T +61 2 9406 3100 F +61 2 9406 3101 W www.ventracor.com
ABN 46 003 180 372
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DON ESMORE: But I think for the individual
who's 60, 70 years of age and otherwise well, and has end stage heart
disease, and they can have a device like this implanted, either for a small or
no cost, that gives them a chance at quality and duration of survival, I think it's
very, very hard for us, as individuals, to withhold that therapy from them
merely based on cost.
MARY GEARIN: For the ladies who are there to change the batteries and
take over any duties with power tools, all the money and work is worth it.
PATIENT’S WIFE: I'm extremely grateful. Yes, grateful.
PATIENT’S WIFE: We all said to (PATIENT NAME), "It is up to you. It is your
life at stake," and he said, "I want to do it."
So we took the gamble and it has been a wonderful gamble.
PATIENT’S WIFE: It has been great. It's, I mean, he is still here.
MARY GEARIN: The surgery has also allowed (PATIENT NAME) to live to his
50th wedding anniversary a couple of months ago with the woman he calls
"his little girl", Irene.
And he says his four kids are proud he's helping medical science.
PATIENT: I don't think they were too unhappy with me before, but when I had
this done for other people they said, "We are so damned proud of you. So I
thought, well, there you go, hey?”
KERRY O'BRIEN: Spoken like an Aussie.
For more information, please contact:
Andrew Geddes
Manager, Investor Relations
Ventracor Limited
02 9406 3086