CorNav Corporation, a Boulder-based medical device company, has entered into a know-how agreement with Mayo Clinic to further develop a new modality for the delivery of minimally invasive targeted therapies across the epicardial surface of the beating heart.
The know-how license agreement grants a licensee the right to use Mayo Clinic’s know-how for a specific purpose, such as developing, manufacturing or improving a product or service. The agreement with CorNav is to develop the company’s CardioScout™ Epicardial Access System. The device seeks to facilitate the treatment of patients with ventricular tachycardia (VT) that has been found to originate on the outer (epicardial) surface of the heart.
The know-how agreement is the company’s second with Mayo Clinic. The initial agreement, announced last year, was to co-develop congestive heart failure solutions. The goal of this new agreement is to help CorNav more effectively develop the means to address this important unmet need and improve the epicardial treatment of VT that afflicts millions of people in the United States and around the world, explains James Fonger, M.D., founder and CEO.
Working to advance VT treatment
Ventricular tachycardia (VT) is a serious cardiac rhythm disorder that is responsible for the majority of the 350,000 sudden cardiac deaths annually in the United States.
Current epicardial VT ablation is done with off-label ablation catheters cleared for only endocardial use. Epicardial VT procedures are guided by a black-and-white two-dimensional fluoroscopic image and a color electroanatomic map of the ventricular surface. This risks damage to neighboring cardiac structures when key landmarks are not directly visualized and the catheter position is uncertain. The inability to verify safe catheter positioning results in longer, more arduous epicardial procedures and compromised patient outcomes.
CardioScout Epicardial Access System
In contrast, the CardioScout minimally invasive endoscopic platform provides agile navigation across the epicardial surface of the beating heart to deliver VT ablation. It accesses the heart via a small subxiphoid incision. A scope is directed over a guide wire towards the left shoulder into the pericardial sac around the heart. Real-time, high-fidelity color video imaging across the epicardial surface of the beating heart enables precise navigation to the area of interest.
The endoscope articulates with a flexible, segmented catheter body resembling the human spine that conforms to the natural curvature of the heart. When in position, the hood at the end of the scope elevates to create a pericardial space with LED illumination and a high-resolution color image. Agile articulation, direct illumination and epicardial color imaging have the potential to result in safer, more efficient and more effective epicardial VT ablations, says Fonger.
“The opportunity to collaborate with the Mayo Clinic is an extraordinary one,” says Fonger. “The collaboration will substantially further our work in making epicardial VT ablation faster, safer, more effective and easier, ultimately improving outcomes for VT patients.”
Mayo Clinic has a financial interest in the technology referenced in this press release. Mayo Clinic will use any revenue it receives to support its not-for-profit mission in patient care, education and research.
