Terumo Cardiovascular Group, a developer of medical devices for cardiac and vascular surgery and subsidiary of Japan-based Terumo Corporation and CytoSorbents Corporation manufacturer of the CytoSorb extracorporeal blood purification adsorber that reduces excessive levels of inflammatory mediators in critically-ill and cardiac surgery patients, announced today that they have entered into a multi-country strategic partnership to commercialize CytoSorb for cardiac surgery applications.
 
Under the terms of the agreement, Terumo has the exclusive rights to distribute the CytoSorb cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) procedure pack for intra-operative use during cardiac surgery in France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland.
 
"Our collaboration with CytoSorbents enables us to offer this innovative, easy-to-use blood purification therapy to address our customers' most challenging cardiac cases," stated Arik Anderson, president of Perfusion and Surgical Devices Division at Terumo. "CytoSorb integrates with the heart-lung machine platform, giving surgical teams, for the first time, the ability to safely reduce dangerous inflammatory mediators in real-time as they are being generated during cardiac surgery."
 
"We believe Terumo's extensive relationships in cardiac surgery centers, combined with the benefits and simple implementation of CytoSorb, will accelerate adoption of CytoSorb as a cost-effective, standard-of-care therapy to control severe inflammation in patients undergoing cardiac surgery," said Anderson.
 
"We are proud to begin working with Terumo," commented Dr. Phillip Chan, CEO of CytoSorbents. "Terumo has an outstanding reputation for its commitment to the highest level of patient care, making it the ideal cardiac surgery partner to advance CytoSorb in these European countries."
 
Chris Cramer, CytoSorbents VP of business development added, "The success of CytoSorb under this agreement provides the foundation for future expansion into strategically important markets, such as Japan, where Terumo is a leading medical device manufacturer."
 
There are nearly 92 million people in France and the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Citizens of these countries are covered by universal healthcare funded by the government, but many supplement their healthcare with private insurance. France is the second-largest medical device market in Europe, spending nearly $300 billion annually on healthcare. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland are among the highest GDP-per-capita countries in the world and collectively spend approximately $142 billion on healthcare each year. Across the territory, it is estimated that about 70,000 heart surgeries are performed each year.
 
CytoSorb is CE Mark certified as an extracorporeal cytokine adsorber to reduce the excessive production of inflammatory mediators in a broad range of conditions including cardiac surgery. Worldwide, over 1.5 million open-heart surgeries are performed annually. Many procedures require extended surgical times on the heart-lung machine for cardiopulmonary bypass which could result in increased destruction of blood cells, production of toxic free hemoglobin, cytokines, and other inflammatory substances that can trigger severe inflammation. Left untreated, this inflammation may lead to hemodynamic instability, an increased need for vasopressor and extracorporeal life support, and an elevated risk of organ dysfunction and failure. CytoSorb therapy has already been used safely in thousands of cardiac surgeries as a new strategy to regain control of severe inflammation, with the potential to improve surgical outcomes, reduce post-operative complications, and lower the overall cost of care.
 
Financial terms of this agreement have not been disclosed.