February 17th 2020
Paris, February 17, 2020 – 6.00 pm CET
CARMAT (FR0010907956, ALCAR), the designer and developer of the world’s most advanced total artificial heart (TAH), aiming to provide a therapeutic alternative for people suffering from end-stage biventricular heart failure, announces that the French National Authority for Health (HAS) has deemed the CARMAT TAH eligible with observations to start a clinical study in France as part of the Forfait Innovation program.
The Forfait Innovation[1] is a program that facilitates the early access of patients to innovative technologies in the early clinical development phase. According to the HAS, the CARMAT TAH meets the criteria of novelty linked to the use of biological materials in contact with blood, its capacity of auto-regulation and the lighter and quieter external equipment. Moreover, the HAS considers that the device is likely to bring a significant clinical benefit addressing an insufficiently met medical need and that the proposed clinical study allows to collect the missing data needed to assess the improvement of the care provided to transplant-eligible patients suffering from biventricular heart failure.
CARMAT has submitted a prospective multi-center non-randomized study that aims to evaluate the survival rate at 180 days after implantation without a disabling stroke or until a successful cardiac transplantation. CARMAT has obtained the approval to conduct such a clinical study by the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (ANSM) and is awaiting the Ethics Committee final approval (CPP). CARMAT is committed to respond to the observations of HAS on the study protocol within the timelines foreseen by the Forfait Innovation program. Upon final approval of the study, CARMAT will initiate budget discussions with the ministers responsible for Health and Social Security.
Stéphane Piat, Chief Executive Officer of CARMAT, comments: “We are delighted with this positive opinion from the HAS, which demonstrates a real need for more effective and safer management of heart failure patients in France. Following the recent FDA approval to initiate a feasibility study of our device in the United States, this is another major milestone of our project to make our technology rapidly available to patients eligible for heart transplant.”
[1] The Forfait Innovation is granted by the ministers responsible for Health and Social Security, after the initial eligibility deemed by the HAS (https://www.has-sante.fr/jcms/c_2035788/fr/forfait-innovation).