https://citoday.com/articles/2022-july-aug/20-years-of-tavr-an-interview-with-alain-cribier-md-facc-fesc

20 Years of TAVR: An Interview With Alain Cribier, MD, FACC, FESC

Just for interest - This is from an interview with the late Alain Cribier. J&J have been around TAVR since the beginning and have long been interested.

”For 5 years, the project was rejected by experts from many biomedical companies. It was considered the stupidest project presented. I must confess that I was rather discouraged, until our luck changed when we met with two engineers from Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Stan Rabinovich and Stan Rowe, who surprisingly supported the project. They spoke to Martin Leon, MD, then Medical Director at J&J, who also embraced the project. After a failed attempt to develop the aortic valve with J&J, we launched a start-up in 1999 called Percutaneous Valve Technologies, Inc. (PVT), with the goal of taking on the challenge ourselves. We found a small engineering company in Israel (Aran R&D) that agreed to invest and develop the stented valve prototype with the help of Assaf Bash, a remarkable engineer who was experienced in stent development and who, with his team, solved numerous issues associated with the “philosophy” of the stented valve. Within a few months, I had in my hand a prototype corresponding to my wishes: a laser-cut, stainless steel stent that was 23 mm in diameter and comprised a tricuspid polymeric (later, equine pericardial) valve. The device and all additional accessories were submitted to complete laboratory testing in Israel.”