The maker of a "heart in a box" system that preserves organs prior to transplant surgery has raised $20 million in equity funding from 11 investors, pushing its total fundraising haul to around $120 million since 2009, SEC filings show. Investors includes Flagship Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers.
TransMedics seeks to commercialize an alternative to standard ice-filled picnic coolers as the standard method of preserving and transporting hearts. It previously had some of the biggest med tech VC rounds of 2012 and 2010. Both raised $36 million.
The company's OCS Heart perfusion and monitoring system delivers blood to the heart, so that it can continue to beat while encased in the device. According to a company video, the gizmo could enable transportation over longer distances and lower organ rejection.
In addition, the OCS Heart may increase the supply of donated hearts, because it can revive the hearts from donors who suffered circulatory death. In April, St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, became the first in the world to conduct a successful transplant from that type of donor thanks to the OCS Heart, according to a company release.
The OCS Heart was recently tested against the standard of care for preservation (picnic coolers) in a clinical trial for yet to-be-achieved FDA approval at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
A study in The Lancet concluded that the company's OCS Heart performed comparably to cold storage in the short run, and said the organ care system was able to identify pathologically abnormal hearts, saving patients from faulty organs, according to MedCity News.
According to ClinicalTrials.Gov, TransMedics is also recruiting patients to test the system for lung preservation and transplantation.
- here's the SEC filing
- here's more from MedCity News
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