Procyrion Develops New Intra-Aortic Support Pump

Houston, Texas-based Procyrion Inc. is working to commercialize a new intra-aortic support pump that help diseased hearts “reduce afterload as well as workload, and increase end-organ perfusion, according to the company.

The device was developed by Reynolds M. Delgado, III, M.D., a cardiologist and medical director of Mechanical Support Devices in Heart Failure at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston. The pencil-narrow Aortix device — six millimeters in diameter — consists of a small, continuous flow pump mounted within a self-expanding anchoring system. The device is advanced through a catheter in the femoral artery to the descending thoracic aorta in a 10-minute minimally invasive outpatient procedure.

The Aortix features anchors that expand and grab onto the wall of the aorta, but don’t impede the blood flow created by the heart. Rather than taking over the heart’s function, the Aortix pump assists the heart and helps blood perfuse the end organs. The device can be used from a week up to six months before being removed in another minimally invasive procedure. While installed, the pump is connected to a wire that is interfaced with an external power source.

Procyrion eliminates the need for hospitalization (typically associated with traditonal left ventricular assist devices), and its intra-aortic placement downstream of the carotid arteries eradicates embolic stroke risk. The device’s small size and low power requirements will afford patients a high QoL during treatment and ultimately provide the ability to power the device wirelessly through the skin without any indwelling leads, the company claims.

“Medical device innovation faces continued pressure not only to improve patient quality of life, but also to reduce the cost of care, especially with respect to hospitalization and re-hospitalization costs. Procyrion is in a unique position to potentially do both,” Procyrion President/CEO Benjamin Hertzog said.

The Procyrion device has been successfully deployed, tested, and retrieved in vivo in large-animal heart failure models (n=10) and human cadaver studies across multiple investigator sites. Data from the large animal experiments confirms reduced cardiac load and cardiac oxygen consumption, improved ejection fraction and cardiac output, and increased renal perfusion and urine output.