PETAH TIKVA, Israel, April 13, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Leviticus Cardio, a portfolio company of The Trendlines Group, announced the successful completion of its latest round of financing. The Company raised over $1.5 million through private investors, including acclaimed cardiovascular physicians. The funds will allow the Company to commence its eagerly anticipated “first-in-man” (FIM) feasibility study with the unique Coplanar Energy System (CET). This study will be presented in Nice, France on 16th April 2015 at ‘ISHLT 2015'.
Leviticus Cardio Ltd. announced today that having successfully completed its latest round of financing, it can now plan for the company’s “first in man” (FIM) study with its proprietary technology, which provides wireless energy transfer for LVAD patients with the Coplanar Energy Transfer (CET) system. The study will commence in 2015. The Company is currently in discussions with several key LVAD centers of excellence in Europe to determine which medical center/s will take part in the study. Successful preclinical in vivo studies and completion of the last round of financing has enabled Leviticus Cardio Ltd. to advance its plans for the clinical study.
The outline for the preclinical and clinical trial will be presented as an oral presentation at ‘ISHLT 2015' on 16th April 2015 (“Emerging Countries Session 1"), by chief medical officer Mr. Yigal Kassif, M.D., a co-founder and co-inventor of the Leviticus Medical Coplanar Energy System.
Leviticus Cardio Co-founder and CEO Michael Zilbershlag said, “LVAD devices today save the lives of many patients with heart failure and this patient population is set to continue to grow globally in the coming years. The ability to transfer energy via a wireless system to a person’s body, efficiently using our proprietary CET technology is a game changer in the LVAD market. It will enable a real improvement to the quality of life for destination therapy patients and patients awaiting a heart transplant on an LVAD system.”
“It is documented that the risk of infection occurs in nearly 50% of LVAD patients at 2 years, which correlates with undesired outcomes for patients,” said Professor Stephan Schueler, M.D., Ph.D., FRCS, Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Trust, UK, member of the advisory board for the Company. “Leviticus Cardio has developed a wireless system which they believe will be capable of providing the day-to-day power needs of LVAD patients, while eliminating the complications related to the driveline. The Company’s solution uses a proprietary patented technology named Coplanar Energy Transfer (CET) and it is expected that it will work with all commercially available LVADs including the market leading HeartMate II and HVAD systems. This technology is an exciting development for LVAD therapy and the trial will test the safety and feasibility of the system.”
“Raising the required financing to fund the first-in-man study confirms our investors’ confidence in our technology,” Yigal Kassif, M.D., Chief Medical Officer remarked. “The first-in-man trial is intended to further underscore the safety, feasibility and clinical applicability of the Coplanar Energy Transfer System as well as to further substantiate the significant efficacy of the therapy that has already been demonstrated in various preclinical and clinical studies.”
Leviticus Cardio is a medical device company founded in 2008 dedicated to improve the clinical outcome for patients implanted with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) for impaired cardiac function. To date, Leviticus Cardio Ltd has raised $2 million in private venture capital and an additional $1 million in government funding. Major investors include The Trendlines Group, Israel’s foremost seed- and early-stage investment group, a consortium of acclaimed cardiovascular physicians, private investors and Israel’s Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) in the Ministry of Economy. The Company has one approved and five pending US patents, covering wireless energy transfer into the human body and its related VAD implementations.
The prevalence of heart failure can be estimated at 12% in the western world and the incidence approaches 510 per 1000 persons per year1. Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is a very common disease in the western world, effecting around 23 million people worldwide. Of the six million people who suffer from CHF, in the US, 250,000 are in the most severe stages (NYHA Class IV) and suffer from a very poor quality of life and low chance of survival. The solution for these patients is heart transplantation (which is offered to only a small portion of patients) or a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD), which is an implanted mechanical circulatory pump. According to NIH estimations, 50,000100,000 patients in the U.S. are currently eligible for LVAD implantation.
The LVAD is implanted in the chest and requires a power supply through a transcutaneous driveline, which connects to an external battery. This extracorporeal driveline (13.5mm to 15mm diameter) exits in the area of the patient’s abdomen, providing a portal of entry for pathogens. LVAD recipients are therefore very vulnerable to device-related infections and repeated hospitalizations. Infection remains the single most important challenge to extended VAD use. The incidence of infection reported in the HMII DT study is 0.48/pt-yr2.
The Trendlines Group is an innovation commercialization company that invents, discovers, invests in, and incubates innovation-based medical and agricultural technologies to fulfill its mission to improve the human condition. As intensely hands-on investors, Trendlines is involved in all aspects of its portfolio companies from technology development to business building.
Media relations:
Keren Ofek-Machluf
+972-4-9535030
keren@ofirpr.co.il
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SOURCE Leviticus Cardio Ltd.
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