Orqis Gains Momentum with Congestive Heart Failure Device
Executive Summary
Orqis Medical slid in under the wire to present late-breaking clinical results for a landmark trial in congestive heart failure at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago in April. Relative to the trial's design, the results were somewhat mixed. The company failed to meet its clinical trial endpoints, but demonstrated significant improvements in a very sick acute heart failure population in a first-of-its kind study, and therefore, proof-of-principle of its novel approach. So, what appears at first glance to be bad news, is actually pretty good news.
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Interventional Heart Failure
Medical device investors who have avoided heart failure, because of the long and uncertain development course of ventricular assist devices, should take another look. The minimally invasive revolution in heart failure, to some extent a logical extension of interventional cardiology's migration into other areas of structural heart disease like heart valves and PFOs, is providing new device opportunities, which have the potential to get to market sooner and at the same address an even larger patient population than heart failure devices that came before.
The Cardio-Renal Connection
Clinicians are increasingly recognizing that the combination of renal dysfunction and heart failure appears to hasten the decline of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), and even to increase their death rates. This is a significant observation because in one million annual hospital admissions for acute decompensated heart failure each year, 80% of patients have some degree of renal insufficiency. Now, several new device companies targeting cardio-renal syndrome hope to attack heart failure from a new vantage point: the kidney.
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