CardiAQ Valve Technologies (CVT) received $750,000 in seed or ‘translational’ funding from Broadview Ventures Inc.—a company associated with Paris-based Fondation Leducq—whose mission is to accelerate the development of technology in cardiovascular and neurovascular disease through targeted investment. The funding will be used to further develop CVT’s platform with an initial indication for percutaneous mitral valve replacement (PMVR). Total funding in CVT is now $1.5 million.

CVT is developing innovative approaches to heart valve replacement and is initially focused on percutaneous mitral valve replacement (PMVR). More than two million people suffer from Mitral Regurgitation (MR), yet only about 80,000 repair or replacement procedures take place each year. The significant treatment gap is largely due to risks associated with currently available mitral valve surgical procedures. While several companies are attempting to develop percutaneous approaches to repair the mitral valve, these technologies have limited applicability due to the heterogeneous nature of the disease and, so far, have had difficulty demonstrating efficacy equivalent to surgical approaches. Likewise, there are several technologies being developed for catheter-based replacement of aortic valves. But all of them rely on radial force for fixation in heavily calcified leaflets, which is not suitable for the mitral valve position.

“The move from basic science to clinical evaluation is especially difficult and expensive,” said David Tancredi, M.D., Ph.D., Scientific Director of Fondation Leducq. “Because funding at the early stage of a medtech company’s evolution is particularly difficult to obtain, promising new technology may simply be abandoned. In CVT’s case, our goal is to prevent that from happening.”

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