CorWave, a medical technology company that develops mechanical circulatory support, has announced that it was a winner for its NovaPulse R&D program in the Worldwide Innovation Challenge in the “Start-up, Silver Economy” category.
The NovaPulse program aims to develop minimally invasive cardiac assist solutions.
The NovaPulse project is one of 182 projects selected out of over 1,500 entries received in the start-up category.
The project was chosen based on a selection process during which the CorWave team was audited by the Medicen competitiveness cluster and interviewed by a team of experts, which included a Nobel Prize winner.
CorWave’s management team was invited by the President of France to an awards ceremony on July 18 at the Paris offices of Agoranov, the business incubator where the company began in 2012.
Heart failure is the primary cause of hospitalisation in people over the age of 65.
This chronic illness, which mainly affects seniors, generally leads to progressive deterioration in patients’ condition.
In advanced stages, there are only two treatments: transplants and mechanical circulatory support.
As these treatments are very risky, they are seldom suggested for elderly patients.
The goal of CorWave’s NovaPulse project is to develop a new kind of minimally-invasive cardiac assist pump enabling the treatment of seniors affected by chronic heart failure.
CorWave claims its innovation could improve the daily life of two million patients and give birth to a market worth about €4 billion in potential sales per year.
The Worldwide Innovation Challenge will make it possible to fast-track the NovaPulse project, which uses a ‘wave membrane’ pump.
The CorWave technology differs from currently used rotary pump technologies in physiological functioning (the ability to furnish a pulsed flow and blood flow velocities similar to that of the native heart).
NovaPulse is being developed by CorWave in parallel with the CorWave LVAD program, which is focused on developing a full-support LVAD designed to be implanted through current surgical procedures.
Silvère Lucquin, head of NovaPulse, and CorWave’s first employee, having joined after his studies at Imperial College London and École Polytechnique Paris, said: “The entire team is very happy to receive this award that rewards extensive work that started with Jean-Baptiste Drevet in the 1990s.
“Moreover, the competition is giving us new resources for this project which offers so much hope.”
CorWave CEO Louis de Lillers added” “We are fortunate: we can rely on a unique technology and are surrounded by leaders in cardiology and cardiac surgery.
“Indeed, the stakes are high: it is a matter of offering heart assist therapies to as many people as possible while reducing the invasive nature of these devices.”