Angel Valve Project (AVP), a spin-off from the Medical University Vienna, has been awarded €200,000 PreSeed investment from Austria Wirtschaftsservice (AWS) to develop what it says is the first transvascular catheter-deployed mitral valve implant for the heart.
The grant money will be used to further develop the device and to back preclinical development of its stented chordal repair system that consists of a PTFE matrix that is mounted on a nitinol stent and deployed via femoral artery or femoral vein and transseptal approach inside the atrioventricular valve. Once deployed, its self-expanding wings spread along the mitral annulus and cover the diseased part of the mitral leaflet containing the prolapsing segment.
Named for the wings spreading above and below the prolapsing segment, the Mitral Butterfly is intended to be used instead of a standard surgical 'conventional' chordal repair which requires major surgery. There is an unmet need of mitral valve therapy since about 98% of patients requiring repair or replacement of the valve remain untreated. Mitral butterfly and its intended use is the correction of the mitral prolapse of the posterior leaflet.
The start-up AVP, located in Vienna, expects its device to make treatment available to non-option patients, and also to younger and relatively healthier patients because of the minimally invasive nature of the implantation procedure.
The PreSeed financing by AWS, the Austrian Government Promotional Bank, is expected to allow the company a first preclinical testing in a passive perfused heart model to visualise the device in action and prove the concept in acute and chronic animals. First-in-human trials will be performed after the initial financing round next year with a clinical pilot study to follow in 2019.AVP is a joint co-operation betweem established experts in the field of nitinol, catheter and textile research and production. The inventor of AVP, Prof. Dr Werner Mohl, worked for 40 years as an academic surgeon in research, patient care and medical education at the Medical University Vienna, Austria. He has longstanding experience in surgical repair of the mitral valve. The consortium is looking for further investors: total financing up to €13m will be needed to reach first-in-man stage.
'The additional commitment and interest from the AWS programme investing in the seed phase of the Angel Valve Project will attract new investors and validates our technology and the need for less invasive options to treat mitral valve disease,' said Prof. Dr Werner Mohl. 'We are confident that we will be able to further develop our concept and bring our concept Mitral Butterfly to market.'