Santa Monica, CA – November 17th, 2014 - Leonhardt Ventures announced today it has increased its stake in Bioheart, Inc. via another debt conversion of $132,522.30. This follows $2,000,000 + $542,787 Leonhardt debt conversions announced previously –http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/biohearts-chief-scientific-and-technology-officer-increases-his-bioheart-stake-89680892.html + S1 filings.
In total Leonhardt Ventures and Howard Leonhardt have directly invested in or borrowed to Bioheart, Inc. over $6 million since its founding. Leonhardt Ventures via its network of recruited angel investors has raised over $85 million of Bioheart’s record setting $107 million in paid in capital as of June 30th 2014. This $107 million has been raised from over 470 investors since 1999, primarily accredited angels, which makes Bioheart’s financing the most successful stem cell research crowdfunding campaign of all time. A great show of confidence in this technology that has stood the test of time. Institutional non-angel investors include; St. Jude Medical (2X), Boston Scientific Guidant (4X), Magellan Group, Presidential Capital, Ascent Medical Technology Fund, Advent Morro, Tyco Ventures, Robin Hood Investments, NorthStar Investments & Minnesota Biomed Partners. Bioheart sold a license to Leonhardt and other patented stem cell delivery catheter technologies (4+ patents) to Abbott Laboratories for $900,000. Under this agreement with Abbott Laboratories they are responsible to defend Bioheart, Inc. against infringers at their expense. Bioheart, Inc. has a collaborative Phase II/III clinical trial support agreement with Cordis Johnson & Johnson related to their MyoStar NOGA system. Dr. William P. Murphy the original Founder of Cordis Corporation, one of the pillar leaders of cardiology, now owned by Johnon & Johnson, is a major shareholder and Bioheart’s long standing Chairman of the Board.
“Bioheart has under promised and over delivered on their MyoCell technology for treating advanced heart failure. Their goal was to beat the performance of CHF drugs and CRT pacers that achieve respectively minus 4 meters decline and 16 to 20 meters improvement in exercise capacity. Bioheart’s 1st gen. MyoCell came in at 95.7 meters improvement over placebo in the controlled, randomized, double blinded Phase II/III MARVEL part I clinical trial - with 33 U.S. centers*. Now entrolling patients in the Phase III MIRROR Trial. No other cell type has beat 63 meters improvement. Cardiac and adipose derived cells score at about 53 meters improvement. Allogenic bone marrow derived cells achieve only 10 meters improvement.” Howard Leonhardt, Executive Chairman of Leonhardt Ventures commented “The 2nd generation Bioheart MyoCell SDF-1 with repeat delivery, nutrient hydrogel and electrical stimulation support is expected to provide even superior results, based on over a dozen years of pre-clinical studies. Bioheart’s MyoCell is the only cell type that has demonstrated an ability to form new contractile muscle in the depths of heart scar tissue. There is over $8 billion spent on CHF drugs each year providing no improvement and only slowing down slightly decline. What is needed is a product like Bioheart’s MyoCell and MyoCell SDF-1 designed to convert heart scar tissue to beating muscle and thus providing true strong improvement. “
Link to the 33 U.S. heart failure centers in the Phase II/III Bioheart MyoCell MARVEL Clinical Trial - http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT00526253?term=MARVEL+BIOheart&rank=1&show_locs=Y#locn Published Phase II/III MARVEL results - http://www.ahjonline.com/article/S0002-8703(11)00562-X/abstract Phase II SEISMIC results summary - http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/final-data-from-the-bioheart-seismic-trial-suggest-safety-efficacy-of-autologous-stem-cell-therapy-for-treating-congestive-heart-failure-56970902.html Howard Leonhardt founded Bioheart, Inc. in early 1999. This was shortly after merging World Medical Mfg. Corp., a company he founded in 1988, into Arterial Vascular Engineering, Inc of Santa Rosa, California in April 1998, which subsequently sold to Medtronic in November 1998. World Medical Mfg. Corp. developed and patented the world’s leading endovascular stent graft system for repairing aortic aneurysms without surgery, that still holds market leading position today. They also developed and patented the first stem cell delivery catheters and percutaneous heart valves which were also sold to Medtronic, Inc. Bioheart, Inc. completed the first-in-man historic muscle stem cell repair of a damaged heart without surgery in May 2001 and has been in clinical trials since that time. Leonhardt remained as full time CEO of Bioheart, Inc. up to March 2007 when he transferred to the Chief Technology Officer position. Bioheart, Inc. completed a $76 million valuation IPO on NASDAQ in February 2008. The only biotech IPO in the whole USA that year. Leonhardt moved to California in 2008 following the IPO and opened up a self funded independent research lab, incubator and accelerator that has focused on developing electronic devices designed originally with intent to primarily help Bioheart's cell compositions improve even further on their results in subsequent clinical trials. These include;
1. BioLeonhardt Stem Cell Pump – www.bioleonhardt.com - The first implantable, programmable, re-fillable stem cell and growth factor pump + elecrical stimulator. Designed to deliver periodic doses of stem cells and growth factors to failing organs including the heart. This product is designed to pre-treat myocardial scar, treat scar and post treat scar instead of just a one time session of injections as done in all stem cell clinical trials for heart failure treatment to date.
2. MyoStim Pacers, Inc. – www.myostimpacers.com - A full lineup of microcurrent devices designed to enhance cell transplantation repair of organs including the heart. Includes microcurrent devices for treating diabetic foot ulcers and critical limb ishemia.
3. Nutrient Hydrogel – a hydrogel based composition designed to enhance the survival, engraftment, retention and differentiation of cells for aiding organ recovery and repair.
Howard Leonhardt and Juan Chachques as inventors patented the first and only electrical stimulation signal known to convert pluripotent stem cells to beating heart muscle – U.S. Patent 7,483,749: Method of enhancing myogenesis by electrical stimulation
Leonhardt has invested over $2 million of his own personal funds in developing these products over time. In addition to collaborative research on treating heart failure Leonhardt and his team are also developing products designed to enhance Bioheart's adipose derived cell platform for treating critical limb ischemia and diabetic foot ulcers. The Leonhardt team will be at the VEITH Peripheral Vascular Symposia all week Nov. 17th to 21st meeting with research collaborators regarding this development as well its AortaCell invention for non-invasively repairing aortic aneuryms with stem cell recruiting and differentiation microcurrent energy signals.
Leonhardt Ventures attends over 20 cardiovascular science meetings a year supporting its portfolio of startups including Bioheart and engaging with collaborative researchers. Leonhardt Ventures founded the Leonhardt Launchpads incubator at the University of Northern California Science and Technology Innovation Center (UNC STIC) in Santa Rosa, California in 2008 www.leonhardtslaunchpads.com and the Cal-X Stars Business Accelerator, Inc. www.calxstars.com in 2013 to help startups growing out of its lab inventions, and a few selected others recruited from outside labs, to form into full fledged focused businesses. In a unique accelerator business model innovation, the Cal-X Stars Business Accelerator, Inc. has pre-set the date of May 11th, 2018 to auction off to the highest bidders its 2014 portfolio of 15 cardiovascular innovations startups. September 3rd, 2014 it was publicly announced in the North Bay Business Journal that Sapheon Medical that incubated at the UNC STIC incubator in Santa Rosa in late 2007, 2008 and early 2009 was sold to Covidien (now owned by Medtronic) - http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/97837/sapheon-formerly-in-santa-rosa-acquired-by-covidien/ The Leonhardt Ventures Cal-X Stars Innovation Accelerator Scientific Advisory Board made up of leading heart failure physicians, stem cell scientists, cardiologists and electrophysiologists will meet privately immediately following the technology showcase at the same location - http://calxstars.com/scientific-advisory-board/. Leonhardt Ventures' Cal-X Stars Business Accelerator and Leonhardt's Launchpads Incubator are guided by over 70 experienced mentors, advisors and management team members - http://calxstars.com/team-cal-x/ About Leonhardt Ventures: Since 1982 Leonhardt Ventures has a strong history of inventing, developing, backing and bringing to market leadership products for treating heart and cardiovascular disease. Over 200,000 patients have been treated to date with Leonhardt inventions. Leonhardt Venture's started the Cal-X Stars www.calxstars.com Innovation and Business Accelerator in 2013 to guide forward cardiovascular and social good impact innovations over a 5 year period. Contact: Howard Leonhardt, Leonhardt Ventures, 1531 6th Street, Unit 401, Santa Monica, California, 90401, Office direct 310 310 2534, Email howard@myostimpacers.com
About Bioheart, Inc.
Bioheart, Inc. is dedicated to advancing the field of regenerative medicine by offering the highest quality technology, cellular treatments and training. Specific to biotechnology, Bioheart, Inc. specializes in the discovery, development and commercialization of autologous cellular therapies that treat a wide variety of degenerative diseases. Bioheart, Inc. is committed to maintaining its leading position within the cardiovascular sector of the cell technology industry by delivering stem cell therapies and biologics that help address congestive heart failure, lower limb ischemia, chronic heart ischemia, acute myocardial infarctions, chronic and acute heart damage, peripheral vascular disease and other issues. Bioheart's goals are to improve a patient's quality of life by regenerating their damaged tissue, when possible, and by reducing health care costs and hospitalizations. Bioheart's leading product, MyoCell, is a clinical muscle-derived cell therapy designed to populate regions of scar tissue within a patient's heart with new living cells for the purpose of improving cardiac function in chronic heart failure patients. For more information on Bioheart, visit www.bioheartinc.com, or visit us on Facebook: Bioheart and Twitter @BioheartInc. Forward-Looking Statements: Except for historical matters contained herein, statements made in this press release are forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "may," "will," "to," "plan," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "could," "would," "estimate," or "continue" or the negative other variations thereof or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Also, forward-looking statements represent our management's beliefs and assumptions only as of the date hereof. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. The Company is subject to the risks and uncertainties described in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the section entitled "Risk Factors" in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013, and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2014. Media Contact: Carissa Matton, Bioheart, Inc., 13794 NW 4th Street, Suite 212, Sunrise, Florida 33325, Phone: 772.285.8511, cmatton@bioheartinc.com
SOURCE: Leonhardt Ventures, 1531 6th Streeet, Unit 401, Santa Monica, CA 90401
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In total Leonhardt Ventures and Howard Leonhardt have directly invested in or borrowed to Bioheart, Inc. over $6 million since its founding. Leonhardt Ventures via its network of recruited angel investors has raised over $85 million of Bioheart’s record setting $107 million in paid in capital as of June 30th 2014. This $107 million has been raised from over 470 investors since 1999, primarily accredited angels, which makes Bioheart’s financing the most successful stem cell research crowdfunding campaign of all time. A great show of confidence in this technology that has stood the test of time. Institutional non-angel investors include; St. Jude Medical (2X), Boston Scientific Guidant (4X), Magellan Group, Presidential Capital, Ascent Medical Technology Fund, Advent Morro, Tyco Ventures, Robin Hood Investments, NorthStar Investments & Minnesota Biomed Partners. Bioheart sold a license to Leonhardt and other patented stem cell delivery catheter technologies (4+ patents) to Abbott Laboratories for $900,000. Under this agreement with Abbott Laboratories they are responsible to defend Bioheart, Inc. against infringers at their expense. Bioheart, Inc. has a collaborative Phase II/III clinical trial support agreement with Cordis Johnson & Johnson related to their MyoStar NOGA system. Dr. William P. Murphy the original Founder of Cordis Corporation, one of the pillar leaders of cardiology, now owned by Johnon & Johnson, is a major shareholder and Bioheart’s long standing Chairman of the Board.
“Bioheart has under promised and over delivered on their MyoCell technology for treating advanced heart failure. Their goal was to beat the performance of CHF drugs and CRT pacers that achieve respectively minus 4 meters decline and 16 to 20 meters improvement in exercise capacity. Bioheart’s 1st gen. MyoCell came in at 95.7 meters improvement over placebo in the controlled, randomized, double blinded Phase II/III MARVEL part I clinical trial - with 33 U.S. centers*. Now entrolling patients in the Phase III MIRROR Trial. No other cell type has beat 63 meters improvement. Cardiac and adipose derived cells score at about 53 meters improvement. Allogenic bone marrow derived cells achieve only 10 meters improvement.” Howard Leonhardt, Executive Chairman of Leonhardt Ventures commented “The 2nd generation Bioheart MyoCell SDF-1 with repeat delivery, nutrient hydrogel and electrical stimulation support is expected to provide even superior results, based on over a dozen years of pre-clinical studies. Bioheart’s MyoCell is the only cell type that has demonstrated an ability to form new contractile muscle in the depths of heart scar tissue. There is over $8 billion spent on CHF drugs each year providing no improvement and only slowing down slightly decline. What is needed is a product like Bioheart’s MyoCell and MyoCell SDF-1 designed to convert heart scar tissue to beating muscle and thus providing true strong improvement. “
Link to the 33 U.S. heart failure centers in the Phase II/III Bioheart MyoCell MARVEL Clinical Trial - http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT00526253?term=MARVEL+BIOheart&rank=1&show_locs=Y#locn Published Phase II/III MARVEL results - http://www.ahjonline.com/article/S0002-8703(11)00562-X/abstract Phase II SEISMIC results summary - http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/final-data-from-the-bioheart-seismic-trial-suggest-safety-efficacy-of-autologous-stem-cell-therapy-for-treating-congestive-heart-failure-56970902.html Howard Leonhardt founded Bioheart, Inc. in early 1999. This was shortly after merging World Medical Mfg. Corp., a company he founded in 1988, into Arterial Vascular Engineering, Inc of Santa Rosa, California in April 1998, which subsequently sold to Medtronic in November 1998. World Medical Mfg. Corp. developed and patented the world’s leading endovascular stent graft system for repairing aortic aneurysms without surgery, that still holds market leading position today. They also developed and patented the first stem cell delivery catheters and percutaneous heart valves which were also sold to Medtronic, Inc. Bioheart, Inc. completed the first-in-man historic muscle stem cell repair of a damaged heart without surgery in May 2001 and has been in clinical trials since that time. Leonhardt remained as full time CEO of Bioheart, Inc. up to March 2007 when he transferred to the Chief Technology Officer position. Bioheart, Inc. completed a $76 million valuation IPO on NASDAQ in February 2008. The only biotech IPO in the whole USA that year. Leonhardt moved to California in 2008 following the IPO and opened up a self funded independent research lab, incubator and accelerator that has focused on developing electronic devices designed originally with intent to primarily help Bioheart's cell compositions improve even further on their results in subsequent clinical trials. These include;
1. BioLeonhardt Stem Cell Pump – www.bioleonhardt.com - The first implantable, programmable, re-fillable stem cell and growth factor pump + elecrical stimulator. Designed to deliver periodic doses of stem cells and growth factors to failing organs including the heart. This product is designed to pre-treat myocardial scar, treat scar and post treat scar instead of just a one time session of injections as done in all stem cell clinical trials for heart failure treatment to date.
2. MyoStim Pacers, Inc. – www.myostimpacers.com - A full lineup of microcurrent devices designed to enhance cell transplantation repair of organs including the heart. Includes microcurrent devices for treating diabetic foot ulcers and critical limb ishemia.
3. Nutrient Hydrogel – a hydrogel based composition designed to enhance the survival, engraftment, retention and differentiation of cells for aiding organ recovery and repair.
Howard Leonhardt and Juan Chachques as inventors patented the first and only electrical stimulation signal known to convert pluripotent stem cells to beating heart muscle – U.S. Patent 7,483,749: Method of enhancing myogenesis by electrical stimulation
Leonhardt has invested over $2 million of his own personal funds in developing these products over time. In addition to collaborative research on treating heart failure Leonhardt and his team are also developing products designed to enhance Bioheart's adipose derived cell platform for treating critical limb ischemia and diabetic foot ulcers. The Leonhardt team will be at the VEITH Peripheral Vascular Symposia all week Nov. 17th to 21st meeting with research collaborators regarding this development as well its AortaCell invention for non-invasively repairing aortic aneuryms with stem cell recruiting and differentiation microcurrent energy signals.
Leonhardt Ventures attends over 20 cardiovascular science meetings a year supporting its portfolio of startups including Bioheart and engaging with collaborative researchers. Leonhardt Ventures founded the Leonhardt Launchpads incubator at the University of Northern California Science and Technology Innovation Center (UNC STIC) in Santa Rosa, California in 2008 www.leonhardtslaunchpads.com and the Cal-X Stars Business Accelerator, Inc. www.calxstars.com in 2013 to help startups growing out of its lab inventions, and a few selected others recruited from outside labs, to form into full fledged focused businesses. In a unique accelerator business model innovation, the Cal-X Stars Business Accelerator, Inc. has pre-set the date of May 11th, 2018 to auction off to the highest bidders its 2014 portfolio of 15 cardiovascular innovations startups. September 3rd, 2014 it was publicly announced in the North Bay Business Journal that Sapheon Medical that incubated at the UNC STIC incubator in Santa Rosa in late 2007, 2008 and early 2009 was sold to Covidien (now owned by Medtronic) - http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/97837/sapheon-formerly-in-santa-rosa-acquired-by-covidien/ The Leonhardt Ventures Cal-X Stars Innovation Accelerator Scientific Advisory Board made up of leading heart failure physicians, stem cell scientists, cardiologists and electrophysiologists will meet privately immediately following the technology showcase at the same location - http://calxstars.com/scientific-advisory-board/. Leonhardt Ventures' Cal-X Stars Business Accelerator and Leonhardt's Launchpads Incubator are guided by over 70 experienced mentors, advisors and management team members - http://calxstars.com/team-cal-x/ About Leonhardt Ventures: Since 1982 Leonhardt Ventures has a strong history of inventing, developing, backing and bringing to market leadership products for treating heart and cardiovascular disease. Over 200,000 patients have been treated to date with Leonhardt inventions. Leonhardt Venture's started the Cal-X Stars www.calxstars.com Innovation and Business Accelerator in 2013 to guide forward cardiovascular and social good impact innovations over a 5 year period. Contact: Howard Leonhardt, Leonhardt Ventures, 1531 6th Street, Unit 401, Santa Monica, California, 90401, Office direct 310 310 2534, Email howard@myostimpacers.com
About Bioheart, Inc.
Bioheart, Inc. is dedicated to advancing the field of regenerative medicine by offering the highest quality technology, cellular treatments and training. Specific to biotechnology, Bioheart, Inc. specializes in the discovery, development and commercialization of autologous cellular therapies that treat a wide variety of degenerative diseases. Bioheart, Inc. is committed to maintaining its leading position within the cardiovascular sector of the cell technology industry by delivering stem cell therapies and biologics that help address congestive heart failure, lower limb ischemia, chronic heart ischemia, acute myocardial infarctions, chronic and acute heart damage, peripheral vascular disease and other issues. Bioheart's goals are to improve a patient's quality of life by regenerating their damaged tissue, when possible, and by reducing health care costs and hospitalizations. Bioheart's leading product, MyoCell, is a clinical muscle-derived cell therapy designed to populate regions of scar tissue within a patient's heart with new living cells for the purpose of improving cardiac function in chronic heart failure patients. For more information on Bioheart, visit www.bioheartinc.com, or visit us on Facebook: Bioheart and Twitter @BioheartInc. Forward-Looking Statements: Except for historical matters contained herein, statements made in this press release are forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "may," "will," "to," "plan," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "could," "would," "estimate," or "continue" or the negative other variations thereof or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Also, forward-looking statements represent our management's beliefs and assumptions only as of the date hereof. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. The Company is subject to the risks and uncertainties described in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the section entitled "Risk Factors" in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013, and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2014. Media Contact: Carissa Matton, Bioheart, Inc., 13794 NW 4th Street, Suite 212, Sunrise, Florida 33325, Phone: 772.285.8511, cmatton@bioheartinc.com
SOURCE: Leonhardt Ventures, 1531 6th Streeet, Unit 401, Santa Monica, CA 90401
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