Novostia Obtains 2.5 Million Euro Grant for its Heart Valve Technology

Novostia has been awarded EUR 2.5 million grant from the European Union under the highly competitive Horizon 2020 EIC Accelerator.
 
The EIC Accelerator is part of the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot that supports topclass companies with funding opportunities and acceleration services to help them develop and bring to market innovative products that have high potential to drive economic growth.
 
Novostia aims at improving the quality of life of people suffering from heart valve disease, especially children and young patients, providing them with a unique, durable, anticoagulant-free and silent heart valve prosthesis.
 
“This grant, together with our recent financing round of CHF 6.5 million, will accelerate the development of our technology toward the first in human studies. We appreciate the trust and support from the European Union, our investors, and partners and look forward to bringing this long-awaited innovation to patients and physicians,” said Geoffroy Lapeyre, Novostia CEO.
 
Last year, Novostia raised CHF 6.5 million from private investors to advance its Triflo aortic and mitral heart valves to clinical trials. Heart valve diseases affect more than 100 million people worldwide. Every year hundreds of thousands of patients undergo a heart valve replacement. Available technologies entail serious constraints: lifelong anticoagulant medication or further replacements due to limited valve durability. Thanks to a unique patented design and the use of a high-performance biocompatible polymer, Novostia eliminates all these constraints as well as clicking noises. “Our technology should significantly improve the quality of life of people bearing a heart valve prosthesis, especially kids and young patients, while reducing overall healthcare costs. We appreciate the trust and support of our investors and look forward to bringing this longawaited innovation to the patients and the physicians,” said Lapeyre.
 
Novostia’s Triflo valve is expected to prevent the flow-induced mechanisms leading to thromboembolism observed on existing mechanical valves.

Experimental, numerical and animal testing demonstrates that the valve physiologically operates like a native human heart valve: it does not produce high velocity backflow jets, does not elicit an haemostatic response and thus is expected to function without anticoagulation therapy. The Triflo valve is made of high-performance biocompatible materials with outstanding wear and fatigue resistance able to withstand the high cardiac cycles. Unlike tissue valves, which have limited durability, especially with young patients, the valve is structurally designed to last a lifetime for patients of any age, thereby avoiding the risk of a re-operation.
 
More than 100 successful long-term (up to 1.5 years) anticoagulant-free animal implants have been performed with no obstructive thrombosis. The valve’s technology results from years of R&D with world leaders in fluid mechanics, advanced biomaterials, high-precision Swiss manufacturing, and prominent academic laboratories.

The Triflo valve was designed by Dr. Didier Lapeyre, a French cardiovascular surgeon, and Philippe Perrier, co-designer of the Rafale Aircraft at Dassault Aviation.