Miniature Heart Pump Implanted Successfully

A miniature heart pump designed to serve as a partial circulatory support in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) has been implanted for the first time in a human being.

The Synergy Pocket Circulatory Device is a small implantable blood pump, the size of an AA battery, designed to provide long-term partial circulatory support to patients with CHF. The key component of the device is a proprietary and patented micro-pump technology acquired after eight years of development at the Helmholtz Institute (Aachen, Germany), in collaboration with Katholieke Universiteit (Leuven, Belgium). The device is designed to be small enough to be implanted in a subcutaneous pocket--much like a pacemaker--through a minimally invasive procedure. The Synergy is designed to supplement the heart's native pumping function, potentially increasing blood flow and allowing the heart to rest and recover. The investigational device is under development by Circulite (Hackensack, NJ, USA).

"The first-in-man implant of our Synergy device is a significant milestone not only for our company, but for the chronic heart failure community as a whole, especially patients, who we hope will someday benefit from this potentially life-changing therapy,” said Paul Southworth, President and CEO of CircuLite.

The Synergy device is designed to provide a new treatment option for over two million CHF patients worldwide who continue to be significantly symptomatic despite appropriate, optimal, medical and device-based therapies. A partial support approach to CHF treatment could expand treatment to the chronic, ambulatory patient in order to improve their quality of life by giving them an elective, less-invasive option to increase blood flow from the heart.


Related Links:
Helmholtz Institute
Circulite