EADS Unveils Innovative Artificial Heart

Airbus' parent designs a technologically advanced artificial heart for a spin-off company, Carmat. Within three years, the device could be approved for humans

By Jennifer L. Schenker

For more than 15 years, European Aeronautics Defence & Space (EAD.PA)—better known as EADS, the parent company of passenger jet maker Airbus—has been working on a secret project that was "more difficult than putting a man on the moon," according to its instigator, renowned French heart surgeon Alain Carpentier.

The mission? To develop a vastly improved artificial heart for humans. By tapping into the aerospace industry's expertise in modeling, stress testing, miniaturization, and design for severe environments—plus the latest advances in medicine, biology, and materials science—the EADS researchers aimed to go well beyond earlier (and not entirely successful) devices such as the famous Jarvik artificial heart first implanted in humans in the early 1980s.

On Oct. 27, the fruits of EADS's long labor were finally unveiled at a Paris press conference, and scientists say the new device could represent a major breakthrough for the millions of people around the world who suffer from cardiovascular diseases, of whom more than 10 million die every year. Among the heart's advantages over predecessors: It employs two internal pumps to move blood to the lungs and into the body, rather than the single pump typical of earlier designs.

The new design also uses cutting-edge biopolymer materials that promise to reduce the formation of dangerous blood clots—a persistent problem with early artificial hearts—and may even spare patients from needing to use nettlesome anticoagulant drugs. And feedback sensors and software can adjust the heart's speed and pressure depending on the exertion level of the wearer, permitting a vastly greater range of physical activity. "The only thing a patient will not be able to do is run the marathon," says Carpentier.

European Tech Ingenuity

Now that the artificial heart has been announced, responsibility for it will be passed to a new EADS spin-off called Carmat—the name is a fusion of Carpentier and Matra, a French engineering company that was absorbed into EADS in 2000. EADS will retain minority ownership in the company, which also will be funded by French venture investment firm Truffle Capital. Carmat is on the verge of starting clinical trials, and pending the approval of French medical authorities, the artificial heart could be implanted in the first human patient within three years.

For Carpentier, 75, it's the realization of a lifelong dream and the capstone of a career that has made him the most famous cardiologist in France. He's especially gratified that the invention is European. Some 30 years ago, when the doctor sought to finance and produce his breakthrough invention of the world's first biomechanically engineered heart valves, he had to cross the Atlantic to find a partner in Edwards Lifesciences (EW). Carpentier Edwards valves, which are made from preserved porcine aortic valves, are now a recognized leader in the $800 million annual replacement valve market. This time around, thanks to EADS and other European investors, Carpentier didn't need U.S. help—a sign of Europe's growing support for riskier tech innovation.

Independent experts say the design of the Carmat artificial heart looks to have a big lead over existing alternatives developed in the U.S. and Asia. Two U.S. companies, Abiomed (ABMD) and MagScrew, already make artificial hearts, and other prototypes have been developed in Japan and Korea. The Carmat heart may be "a significant advance," says Dr. Robert Kormos, head of the artificial heart program at the University of Pittsburgh and a board member of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, who isn't connected with the project and hasn't been briefed on the device.