CardioMEMS
Community Guest Blog post by By Katie Sewell
Every year in conjunction with the Georgia Technology Summit, TAG showcases Georgia's Top 10 Innovative Companies of 2011. We would like to introduce you to CardioMEMS.
CardioMEMS is a medical device company focused on delivering more efficient and cost effective healthcare through the development of proactive patient management technology for severe chronic cardiovascular diseases such as aneurysms, heart failure, and hypertension.
The company has combined passive wireless sensing and MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) technologies to create an innovative wireless, battery-less pressure measurement device for the cardiovascular system. CardioMEMS’ heart failure (HF) pressure sensor is designed for permanent implantation into a patient’s pulmonary artery using a simple, catheter-based procedure. The pulmonary artery pressure is then measured and displayed using the CardioMEMS electronic monitoring system. Following the procedure, patients perform wireless measurements of their pulmonary artery pressure from home. The pressure data is immediately transmitted to a secure database and is available for review by the implanting physician on the CardioMEMS proprietary website. This enables frequent, on-demand, real-time monitoring of vital information, which may reduce the incidence of the costly hospitalizations that account for over half of the almost $40 billion spent on HF in the U.S. each year.
The CardioMEMS HF monitoring system is supported by strong clinical evidence, including the CHAMPION (“CardioMEMS Heart Sensor Allows Monitoring of Pressure to Improve Outcomes in NYHA Class III Patients”) trial, the results of which were presented in May 2010 at the European Society of Cardiology Heart Failure Congress in Berlin. The 550-patient trial, conducted in 64 prominent U.S. heart centers, evaluated the safety and effectiveness of CardioMEMS’ heart failure pressure measurement system. It found a statistically significant 30 percent reduction in the rate of HF related hospitalization at six months and 38 percent per year reduction in HF related hospitalizations during an average follow-up duration of 15 months. The positive results of the CHAMPION trial were published in the February 2011 issue of The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals.
