Percutaneous Ventricular Assist Device jointly developed by Ge Junbo’s team of Zhongshan Hospital affiliated to Fudan university and magAssist has made ground-breaking achievements

Academician Ge Junbo: China's medical device market is growing rapidly, and cardiovascular devices need to make innovative breakthroughs

On July 11, 2021, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of the Shanghai Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, and Director of the Department of Cardiology of Zhongshan Hospital, Ge Junbo delivered a speech during the Yangtze River Delta Medical Equipment Industry Integration Innovation special session at the Taihu Science City summit. At present, Chinese medical device companies still focus on manufacturing cheap and standard products. For a long time to come, medical devices have a lot of room for market growth in China. The country has always emphasized driving innovation, leading innovation, hoping that more high-end medical device companies in China can be developed and allow more competition in the market.

Academician Ge in the speech

Academician Ge also said: "With the continuous development of China's economy and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, and the gradual increase in average life expectancy, China has gradually entered a population ageing society. At present, the number of people with cardiovascular disease has reached 330 million and is the leading cause of death in China. The number of patients requiring coronary intervention (PCI) has exceeded 1 million each year."

Among more than 1 million patients treated with PCI per year, high-risk PCI accounts for about 10%, and around 110,000 surgeries are performed per year. In high-risk PCI surgery, insufficiency of ventricular pumping in patients with heart failure leads to exacerbation of myocardial ischemia, resulting in unstable hemodynamic, high surgical risk, and high mortality. 

The minimally invasive artificial heart can insert a miniaturized blood pump into the patient's aorta through peripheral vascular intervention, thereby providing rapid, non-invasive circulatory assistance when the patient's heart pump fails. For the intraoperative cardiac protection of high-risk coronary intervention and patients with cardiogenic shock due to acute myocardial infarction, it is undoubtedly a strong line of defence in front of the face of death.

At present, this product has not entered the Chinese market, and heart failure patients in China face greater risks when undergoing high-risk PCI surgery, therefore the development of such products in China is of utmost priority.

Academician led, Realizing innovative development of medical engineering

In September 2020, through medical engineering, the clinical team led by Academician Ge Junbo and magAssist officially launched the P-VAD project. Striving to overcome the "last mile" of cardiovascular interventional therapy and developing high-end medical devices services for cardiovascular disease patients in China and even worldwide.

The Percutaneous Ventricular Assist Device jointly developed by Ge Junbo's team and magAssist. The indication is high-risk PCI intraoperative protection, and the key performance indicators are world-leading, with advantages such as smaller intervention size and larger flow.

Academician Ge and magAssist officially launched the P-VAD project

Successful Animal Experiments 

China's independently developed artificial heart achieves breakthrough

After a year of hard work, the Percutaneous Ventricular Assist Device (P-VAD) that is jointly developed by Ge Junbo's team and magAssist has successfully carried out many animal experiments, and the R&D progress is in the lead in China.

The animal experiment was performed by Ge Junbo's team and magAssist’s engineering team. The experiment covered multiple stages such as pre-implantation preparation, intervention, deployment and positioning, operation process monitoring, and recovery.

A variety of flexible intervention methods were used in the experiment, all of which were successfully intervened in animals and achieved accurate deployment and positioning. The medical device ran smoothly, and the animals were in good condition.

Animal experiments have been successful

This is the first full-process and complete verification of the external feasibility of an artificial heart that is developed independently in China: for this animal experiment, through improvements of the surgical process, comparing different interventional methods, monitoring the operation of the device, checking the animal conditions, acquisition of the technological and in vivo parameters, multi-angle clinical operation checks and on-site feedback, etc., have accumulated valuable information and data. magAssist's engineering team will further optimize the function, appearance, human-computer integration habits, UI design (user interface, including display, shape design, specific design, and process of the operation interface, etc.) and other aspects to make targeted optimization.

The percutaneous ventricular assist device jointly developed by Academician Ge Junbo's team and magAssist Medical will soon fill the gap in China's market and save the lives of more patients with acute and critical heart failure.