“We are honored to have our work recognized by the Wellcome Trust. We are further honored to have been chosen by JLABS as one of a limited number of companies to be invited to join its life sciences incubator,” added CorInnova CEO William Altman. “Due to its minimally invasive nature and its potential for reduced adverse events from blood contact, CorInnova’s non-blood-contacting soft robotic cardiac assist device could potentially triple or quadruple the number of heart failure patients who could be eligible for such a life-saving device therapy.”

Further validation of the EpicHeart™ technology occurred in September, when CorInnova was the winner of a $50,000 award at the Fifth Annual Pediatric Device Innovation Symposium organized by the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Health System and funded by the FDA National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation. This competition is designed to foster innovation that will advance pediatric healthcare and address unmet surgical and medical needs for children.


“We are pleased that the compelling advantages of CorInnova’s technology for heart failure treatment in adults is equally compelling for treatment for children,” said Boris Leschinsky, CorInnova’s Vice President of Product Development.

About Heart Failure (HF)
Heart failure is a condition in which the heart is unable to supply sufficient blood flow to meet the body’s needs. There is no cure. About six million people in the U.S. have heart failure. The one million US & EU patients in end-stage congestive heart failure have an extremely poor prognosis (40% two-year mortality). Transplant is the preferred treatment, but only 4,500 hearts are available worldwide. Increasingly, advanced left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) are used to prolong life, but their utilization is limited by invasive surgery, invasive attachment to the heart and aorta, and blood contact, leading to adverse events such as blood clots and stroke, as well as bleeding from necessary anti-coagulant therapy and blood damage. Only about 7,000 to 8,000 LVADs are implanted annually.

About CorInnova Technology
CorInnova has developed a direct cardiac compression device whose technology is a significant break with the prior art. CorInnova’s biventricular device is a collapsible thin-film pneumatically actuated soft robotic device that surrounds both ventricles of the heart. Air inflates the device in synchrony with the heart and increases cardiac output by gently squeezing the heart. CorInnova has also developed an innovative collapsible self-expanding device design that simplifies and speeds implantation. Due to the minimally invasive technology, hospital stays could potentially be reduced from 30 days to 4 to 6 days, compared to LVADs, and overall adverse events compared to LVADs could be reduced up to 30 to 40%. CorInnova’s device can potentially be used for a range of end-stage heart failure patients for cardiac assist, ranging from short-term “Bridge to Decision” use, medium-term “Bridge to Transplant” use, and all the way to permanent “Destination Therapy” use. Diastolic as well as systolic heart failure patients may benefit from the technology. Diastolic heart failure patients currently have no approved device treatment.

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