Sunshine Heart to Present at Lazard Capital Markets Circulatory Assist Device Day

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA and EDEN PRAIRIE, MN--(Marketwire - September 16, 2011) - Sunshine Heart, Inc. (ASX: SHC) today announced that Jeff Mathiesen and Kevin Bassett, Sunshine's Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Research, Development and Quality Assurance, respectively, are scheduled to present at the Lazard Capital Markets Annual Circulatory Assist Device Day in Boston, MA on Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 10:15AM EDT.

About Sunshine Heart
Sunshine Heart (ASX: SHC) is a global medical device company developing innovative technologies for cardiac and coronary disease. The company's C-Pulse® Heart Assist System is an implantable, non-blood contacting, heart assist therapy for the treatment of moderate to severe heart failure which can be implanted using a minimally invasive procedure. C-Pulse is designed to relieve the symptoms of heart failure through the use of counter-pulsation technology by enabling an increase in cardiac output, an increase in coronary blood flow, and a reduction in the heart's pumping load. The company has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to conduct a U.S. feasibility clinical trial with the C-Pulse System. Sunshine Heart is a Delaware-based corporation headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, with a subsidiary presence in Australia. The company has been listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) since September 2004. For more information, please visit www.sunshineheart.com.

About the C-Pulse Heart Assist System
C-Pulse Heart Assist System utilizes an extra-aortic approach to proven intra-aortic balloon counter pulsation technology to assist the left ventricle by reducing the workload required to pump blood throughout the body, while increasing blood flow to the coronary arteries. Operating outside the patient's bloodstream, the novel extra-aortic approach of the C-Pulse technology offers greater flexibility allowing patients to disconnect as necessary or desired. The C-Pulse Heart Assist's potential benefits may help reverse the heart failure process or maintain the patient's current condition, thereby preventing the need for later stage heart failure devices, such as left ventricular assist devices (LVADs), artificial hearts or transplants.

Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements that are based on management's beliefs, assumptions and expectations and on information currently available to management. All statements that address operating performance, events or developments that we expect or anticipate will occur in the future are forward-looking statements, including without limitation our expectations with respect to the progress of, and presentation of data related to product development and commercialization efforts, results of clinical trials, expected timing of FDA regulatory filings, FDA acceptance of our filings and research and development activities, ultimate clinical outcomes and benefit of the Company's products to patients, market and physician acceptance of the products, intellectual property protection and competitive product offerings could cause actual events to adversely differ from the expectations indicated in these forward looking statements. Management believes that these forward-looking statements are reasonable as and when made. However, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements because they speak only as of the date when made. Sunshine Heart does not assume any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Sunshine Heart may not actually achieve the plans, projections or expectations disclosed in forward-looking statements, and actual results, developments or events could differ materially from those disclosed in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, the possibility the FDA does not accept our regulatory application or approve the marketing of the C-Pulse® Heart Assist System in the U.S., and those described in our filings with the ASX. We may update our risk factors from time to time in our filings with the ASX.