SUNRISE, Fla., May 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Bioheart, Inc., a leader in developing cell therapies for heart repair, announced today the signing of a patent licensing agreement with Tricardia, LLC of Eden Prairie, Minnesota for patents covering an improved injection needle. The needle will be attached to Bioheart’s SR-200 MyoCath(R) needle injection catheter system, which is capable of delivering biological solutions to the heart.
The agreement provides Bioheart, Inc. with the worldwide exclusive rights to four issued U.S. patents and corresponding foreign filings that cover the needle and its methods of use in the field of delivering therapeutic compositions to the heart. The needle has a closed tip and side holes that allows for multidirectional injection and has been shown to increase the dispersion of implanted biologics within a beating heart without substantial leaking. The inventors of this enhanced needle include Dr. Robert Van Tassel, a Senior Consultant in Cardiology with the Minneapolis Heart Institute, and Dr. Robert Schwartz, the Medical Director of the Minnesota Cardiovascular Research Institute.
“The modified needle covered by these licensed patents will provide us with another tool to improve the retention of Bioheart’s therapeutic cell composition within a patient’s heart,” said Howard J. Leonhardt, Chairman and CEO of Bioheart. “We are hopeful that this development will lead to even better outcomes for the many heart failure patients we are attempting to treat,” he added.
“We look forward to working with the Bioheart team to move this needle technology forward,” stated Dr. Robert Van Tassel of Tricardia. “We are confident that this needle will enhance the distribution of Bioheart’s therapeutics within heart tissue and lead to increased benefits for the patients.”
About Tricardia:
Tricardia was formed to assist medical device companies in the development of new products to achieve better outcomes and thus improve patients’ lives. The company creates novel medical technology by bringing together innovative intellectual property in cardiovascular medicine with the human and financial resources necessary for development. Tricardia provides ongoing clinical and scientific guidance to ensure that technologies are safe, effective, and meet the needs of patients. The company creates, acquires and develops intellectual property and technologies, moving them from bench to bedside. Their expertise runs the gamut of development, from technology review and assessment, acquisition (including licensing and negotiation), to research and commercialization. Tricardia carries innovation from embryonic stages of development through maturity as a potent addition to the healthcare marketplace. The company possesses expertise in cardiovascular medicine, permitting concept development, design, and testing, working to bring them into the clinical environment.
About Bioheart:
Bioheart, Inc., founded in 1999, is focused on developing, testing and commercializing cell-based therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, including myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure and cardiovascular electrical abnormalities. The Company is currently testing its lead product candidates, MyoCell(TM) and MyoCath(R). The MyoCell(TM) implantation therapy is designed to regenerate areas of damaged myocardial tissue. MyoCath(R) is a percutaneous needle injection catheter engineered to deliver cell therapy or other compounds to myocardial tissue. Bioheart, Inc. believes its therapy is the first non-surgical method being studied in Phase II/III clinical trials to potentially provide recovery of damaged or weakened myocardial tissue. Bioheart, Inc. is sponsoring clinical trials of its MyoCell(TM) myogenic cell composition delivered via the MyoCath(R) catheter for damaged heart muscle repair at 10 sites in Europe and five in the USA. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in developed countries. There are 7.1 million heart attack patients and almost 5 million patients with congestive heart failure in the United States alone, with the direct annual costs of their treatment reaching $28 billion and $25 billion, respectively. For more information about Bioheart, please visit http://www.bioheart.com or telephone Mr. Jason Griffeth at 954-835-1500.
Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical may be “forward-looking” statements, which involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that Bioheart, Inc. will be able to commercially develop cardiovascular cell therapy or electrical stimulation products, that necessary regulatory approvals will be obtained or that any clinical trials will be successful or that the proposed treatments will prove to be safe and/or effective.
Bioheart, Inc.
CONTACT: Jason Griffeth, Bioheart, Inc., +1-954-835-1500
Web site: http://www.bioheartinc.com/
