Realheart Enters Into Collaboration With Sahlgrenska for Clinical Studies

Press Release July 3, 2023

Scandinavian Real Heart AB initiates a collaboration with Chief Physician and Professor Göran Dellgren at the Transplantation Center and Thorax Clinic at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. The collaboration is part of the preparations for the clinical studies on patients with the company's artificial heart, which is planned to start when everything is ready. The intention is that Sahlgrenska University Hospital will eventually participate in the clinical study.

Several experimental and pre-clinical studies will be carried out within the framework of the collaboration, including a closer examination of surgical methods and patient selection.

Professor Göran Dellgren has a long history of working with patients with severe heart failure and has performed several heart transplants and implantations of mechanical pumps. Since 2016, in a Swedish research group, he has been running one of the largest studies in Sweden on patients with severe heart failure where drug treatment is compared with mechanical circulatory support for the heart, the study is called the SweVAD study.

 "In the SweVAD study, we have recruited 64 patients, so hopefully we will be done within a year with that study," says Göran Dellgren.

Realheart's artificial heart is the first to be developed to mimic the human heart with four chambers and a pulsating blood flow. The company's vision is to be able to replace heart transplants with total artificial hearts in the future, or at least be a full-fledged alternative with equally good results, fewer side effects and greater accessibility for patients. Today, about 60 heart transplants are performed annually in Sweden, but the company believes that the need is far greater than that.

"We see great potential and synergy in our collaboration with Professor Dellgren at Sahlgrenska Hospital. It is incredibly important for us to have a dedicated and clinically active heart surgeon with us and now we will work together to prepare to be able to conduct a clinical trial in Sweden", says Ina Laura Perkins, CEO of Realheart.