MitraPlug

50% of the patients surviving a heart attack develop some degree of mitral regurgitation, a secondary lesion of the mitral valve. Timely intervention to correct this cardiac valve problem is imperative, without which cardiac morbidity and mortality is increased. However, current open heart surgery techniques are risky and invasive and thus patients are not referred to it until late stages of heart failure. The need for beating heart mitral valve therapies that are performed using catheters is immense.
Annually, 830,000 patients develop mitral regurgitation in US and Western Europe, with the market valued at $3.3 billion, which largely remains untapped due to lack of feasible technologies.
MitraPlug, is our novel transcatheter solution for mitral regurgitation. Through a transapical catheter, an inflatable silicone plug is implanted on the mitral valve leaflet at the site of leakage, which covers the gap between the two leaflets. Iterative prototype design and development is now complete, and the acute efficacy of the device is demonstrated in acute animal models.