Description

Acorn Cardiovascular develops treatments for patients with heart failure. The company's introductory product, the CorCap Cardiac Support Device (CSD), is intended to improve the heart's structure and function, leading to potential improvements in the quality and duration of a patient's life.

Products/Services

The CorCap CSD is a proprietary, compliant mesh wrap that is implanted around the heart to provide gentle support to the heart muscle. It is intended to prevent and reverse the progression of heart failure.

Technology

The CorCap CSD is the first heart failure therapy specifically designed to address the problem of cardiac enlargement, which is a hallmark of heart failure progression. An enlarged heart becomes increasingly less efficient at pumping blood, which leaves patients tired and short of breath and often compromises basic daily activities. By relieving stress on the muscle wall, the CorCap CSD is intended to diminish the heart's size and improve its shape, which correlate with improvements in the patient's quality of life.

Market/Customers

Heart failure (HF) is a condition caused by damage to the heart muscle, which results in the inability of the heart to pump enough blood to meet the needs of the body. This debilitating and progressive disorder affects more than five million people in the United States and twenty-five million people worldwide. An estimated 550,000 new HF cases are diagnosed each year in the United States. Heart failure can be caused by or is the end result of a number of conditions, including coronary artery disease, prolonged high blood pressure, poor valve function or other cardiovascular abnormalities.

Status

Randomized clinical trials evaluating effectiveness of the CorCap CSD have been completed in North America and Europe. The CorCap CSD received CE Marking in September 2000 but was denied FDA approval in June 2005. Acorn entered into arbitration with the FDA in the fourth quarter of 2006. The CorCap CSD has been used in the treatment of more than 330 patients worldwide. Acorn Cardiovascular announced its MVR Confirmatory Clinical Trial on April 1, 2008.