Novostia has just announced the closing of its Series A financing round with 2.5 million euros that will enable the launch of First-in-Human trial. The company is developing a breakthrough artificial heart valve. 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, the company eliminates all these constraints. 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. 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.
