CorWave's Next-generation Neptune LVAD Receives Funding

July 11, 2018 — French-based CorWave announced that its CALYPSO program has received 14 million euros to develop CorWave Neptune, a new type of cardiac support to improve the management of patients with severe heart failure. The CALYPSO Research and Development (R&D) program, with a total budget of 25 million euros over 4 years, will be partially financed with 14 million euros support from the Programme d'Investissements d'Avenir (Future Investments Program), managed by the Secrétariat Général pour l’Investissement (General Secretariat for Investment – SGPI) and operated by Bpifrance.

The CALYPSO program aims to optimize and then clinically evaluate the CorWave Neptune device, an implantable cardiac support blood pump, also known as a left ventricular assist device (LVAD). Neptune features natural physiological response, designed to reduce the risk of complications associated to current LVADs and intended for patients suffering from severe heart failure.

Heart failure is involved in one in ten deaths in France. This chronic disease can be fatal, with nearly half of patients dying within five years of diagnosis. The number of patients affected by heart failure increases as the population ages and becomes more sedentary.

CorWave CEO Louis de Lillers said the funding would help the company set up major partnerships with university hospitals for preclinical and clinical studies.

"With its breakthrough technology, CorWave is in principle capable of generating pulsatile flow, similar to that of the body's normal physiology, reducing the serious complications associated with continuous flow pumps. Our teams, in collaboration with the IHU-ICAN research teams and the medical teams at CHU de Lille Hospital, look forward to conducting clinical trials with patients equipped with current and future LVAD technology,” said Prof. Pascal Leprince, head of cardiac and thoracic surgery at the AP-HP Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital and professor at the Sorbonne University Faculty of Medicine.

For more information: www.corwave.fr