Cardiovascular high-value consumables have always been a hotspot for investment.
It is reported that cardiovascular medical device developer “Pi-Cardia” announced that it has received a strategic investment of US $ 27 million. A new round of financing. The leading investor in this round is European life science venture Sofinnova Partners, and the investors include the company’s chairman Professor Jacques Séguin and old shareholders.
Pi-Cardia is an Israeli cardiovascular medical device company that develops non-implantable catheter solutions for the treatment of heart valve calcification.
Cardiovascular disease is one of the most life-threatening diseases. Especially the elderly people are facing greater cardiovascular risk. According to data from ZION Market Research, approximately 423 million adults worldwide suffer from cardiovascular disease, of which 17.9 million people die from the disease each year; cardiovascular disease accounts for 31% of the global annual deaths, ranking first in the cause of death, of which five Four out of four are caused by heart attack and stroke.
Speaking of heart valve calcification, this is a unique disease of the elderly. With age, it is easy to cause the heart valve to close and open.
For this disease, Pi-Cardia ’s idea is, if Aortic valve stenosis can be resolved early, so it may delay the course and symptoms. Compared to the popular Catheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR), they think Treatment without implants will be more beneficial to patients.
Image from Pi-Cardia official website
Based on this, the company developed the Leaflex Performer catheter. It is a transfemoral artery catheter that uses two unique mechanical devices to score the valve calcification at multiple locations. These score lines rupture the calcium deposits, thereby restoring the flexibility of the valve leaflets, increasing the activity of the valve leaflets, and improving the valve hemodynamic indicators. The Leaflex Performer catheter has good durability and is more economical than catheter aortic valve replacement.
It has several application scenarios: one is for patients who do not intend to undergo transcatheter aortic valve replacement; the other is for patients who postpone transcatheter aortic valve replacement because of their age; It can also be a pretreatment method to improve the effect of TAVR in patients with severe calcification and bicuspid aortic valve.
Last year, Pi-Cardia successfully completed its first human (FIH) trial. This round of funding will be used for subsequent parallel clinical trials in the United States and Europe.
Cardiovascular high-value consumables have always been a hotspot for investment. Companies on the track include CardiMED, Mercator, Jianshi Biological, Bairen Medical, Xinmai Medical, Pei Jia Medical, etc.