WorldHeart

WorldHeart, formerly World Heart Corporation (NASDAQ: WHRT, closed) is a public medical technology company headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT, that designs and sells ventricular assist devices (VAD)s. VAD is designed to supplement the circulatory function of the heart by re-routing blood flow through a mechanical pump. The VAD is important in Bridge-to-Transplant theory (BBT) therapy, which needs implanting a VAD in a transplant-eligible patient in order to maintain or improve the patient’s heart until it is available for the patient to acquire a donated heart. WorldHeart's pioneering first-generation novacor LVAS was clinically used from 1984 for more than 1800 patients throughout North America, Europe and Japan. In 2008, its sale was discontinued worldwide. Moreover, WorldHeart's Levacor® VAD was implanted in 15 subjects during a Bridge-to-Transplant clinical study, which was halted in July 2011. Three of these subjects continue to be supported by the device.
In August 2012, the company was acquired by HeartWare International, Inc., which was one of its competitors. HeartWare International, Inc., is a medical device company, headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts,that engages in developing and manufacturing miniaturized implantable heart pumps or VAD for the treatment of advanced heart failure. Under the terms of the merger agreement, HeartWare acquired all of the outstanding voting securities of World Heart for merger consideration of approximately $8,000,000 in HeartWare common stock. Additionally each share of World Heart common stock has been converted into the right to receive 0.003 shares of HeartWare common stock e.

Other competitors of WorldHeart include Thoratec Corporation, ZOLL Medical Corp., Fischer Imaging Corporation, and Ophthalmic Imaging System, etc.
Products
The left ventricle is responsible for taking oxygenated blood from the lungs and pumps it to and through the tissues and organs. The left ventricle does most of the pumping work and fails more often as a result of a heavy and constant demand. The company provides VAD to support left ventricle and the product is called LVADs, namely left ventricular assist devices, which include MiFlowTM VAD and PediaFlow VAD.

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