news article

Herald Sun BUSINESS

Having the heart for the job
BY JOHN BEVERIDGE
Copyright 2007 News Ltd. All Rights Reserved

IF you are selling a heart pump, one of the most basic questions is ``will it help me live longer?''

The answer from ASX listed Ventracor seems to be an emphatic yes. In a presentation to a PiperJaffray health care conference in New York yesterday, CEO Peter Crosby said trials of the VentrAssist system showed excellent long term survival of patients.

The device, which is an implantable blood pump attached to the left ventricle, is used as a bridge to a later heart transplant or as a permanent therapy when a transplant is not possible.

Six months after treatment, 83 per cent of patients were still alive and a year later 76 per cent had survived.

Considering most of these patients were suffering from end stage heart failure, those statistics are encouraging and similar to the early clinical results from heart transplants.

Peter said Ventracor's left ventricle assist device (LVAD) technology was some of the most advanced on the market with a third generation centrifugal blood pump which had no mechanical bearings and only one moving part.

The product pipeline included a smaller and lighter version of the external components of the pump and a fully implantable version.

The fully implantable system would ``recharge'' the pump through the skin, allowing patients to remove the external power controller.

Because there was no lead going into the chest cavity, that system would allow a better lifestyle and pose less infection risk.

Peter said that should drive a ``more rapid acceptance of LVAD therapy.''

He described the commercial potential of LVAD as ``huge'' with more than 50,000 new end stage heart failure patients each year in the US alone. Ventracor shares closed steady at 62. /

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The fully implantable system is the TETS TECHNOLOGY, coming soon. Cheers dma