As recently reported in the Pittsburgh Business Times, Dr. Harvey Borovetz, a McGowan Institute faculty member and chair of the department of bioengineering at Pitt, is part of a local team vying to develop a pediatric artificial heart before March 2009, when a $4.3 million contract from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute runs out. Also on Borovetz’s team are McGowan Institute faculty members Dr. James Antaki of CMU and Dr. Peter Wearden, a Children’s Hospital heart surgeon. Similar projects have been funded by NIH at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Jarvik Heart, Inc., Penn State University, and Ension, Inc.
What was the main thrust behind Borovetz’s quest to develop this heart? He explains the current treatment for kids with failing hearts is woefully inadequate. Children are currently treated with a machine the size of a home freezer on wheels. This device, the ECMO, has a mortality rate of 1 out of 3 children. Borovetz helped surgeons pioneer the ECMO for children in the 1970s. The team is now trying to replace the ECMO (something of a miracle in its time) with a device the size of a quarter and with the works of a Swiss watch. “Look at your thumb,” Borovetz says. “That’s too big.”
The team is working on promising technology which needs commercial investors who can bring this to those who need it—children. Annually, there are about 1000 children nationwide who will benefit from the pediatric artificial heart. Typically, few companies are willing to invest in such a small market. Drs. Borovetz, Antaki, and Wearden hope the numbers do not deter investment and subsequently the major impact this device would have on children with congenital heart disease.
Illustration: McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
CNN Money (09/06/07)
Pittsburgh Business Times (07/06/07)
Newswire CA (07/16/07)