Vascor

Vascor (VASCOR Inc.) is a privately held medical-device company based in Pennsylvania, United States, located about 14 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. It was founded by M. Stephen Heilman and co-workers, the team that — in cooperation with Michel Mirowski — developed and brought to market the world's first implantable defibrillator. Vascor operates out of a 12,000-square-foot facility within a modern industrial park and maintains electronic, mechanical and software development capabilities for implantable devices. The company's core program is a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) intended as a true heart-assist rather than a ventricular replacement. Vascor's design uses a small pusher-plate pump connected to the descending thoracic aorta and operates on the well-known counterpulsation principle: the pump expands its blood volume during systole to help the weak left ventricle empty into the aorta, and decreases its volume during diastole to push blood through the peripheral circulation. The company states that placing the device in series with the heart avoids the risk of reverse blood flow through the pump if power is lost, a concern it associates with rotary VADs. Vascor has explored numerous heart-assist methods, including magnetically suspended turbine pumps, but chose the pusher-plate counterpulsation design because of blood-shear concerns associated with rotary pumps. The Vascor LVAD remains under development and has not been approved for sale or use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The company presents itself as an engineering-driven developer of implantable circulatory-support technology.

Vascor (VASCOR Inc.) is a Pennsylvania corporation founded by M. Stephen Heilman and co-workers. The founding team is notable for having, in cooperation with Michel Mirowski, developed and brought to market the world's first implantable defibrillator — a landmark in implantable cardiac-device technology. Building on that background in implantable electronics, Vascor was established as a medical-device developer located about 14 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, occupying a 12,000-square-foot facility within a modern industrial park. The company's development work has centered on mechanical circulatory support. Vascor explored numerous heart-assist methods, including magnetically suspended turbine pumps. However, citing blood-shear concerns associated with rotary pumps, the company chose a ventricular assist device (VAD) design based on a small pusher-plate pump connected to the descending thoracic aorta, operating on the counterpulsation principle. Vascor's stated design philosophy is that its device should be a true assist device placed in series with the heart, rather than a ventricular replacement. In its description, rotary VADs propel blood in parallel with the left ventricle and can inhibit the left ventricle from pumping normally through the aortic valve, so that all circulation passes through the pump — making such devices, in Vascor's view, more properly termed ventricular replacement devices. By contrast, Vascor's in-series pump is intended to avoid reverse blood flow through the pump into the weak left ventricle if power is lost or turned off. The pump expands its blood volume during systole to ease emptying of the left ventricle into the aorta, and decreases its volume during diastole to force blood through the peripheral circulation, adding circulatory work — a combination known as counterpulsation, a well-established form of heart assist also used on a temporary basis by intra-aortic balloons in tens of thousands of patients each year. As of the company's own disclosures, the Vascor LVAD remains under development and has not been approved for sale or use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Vascor maintains the electronic, mechanical and software development capabilities necessary to develop and produce implantable devices.

• M. Stephen Heilman and co-workers, in cooperation with Michel Mirowski, develop and bring to market the world's first implantable defibrillator.

• Vascor is founded as a Pennsylvania corporation by M. Stephen Heilman and co-workers.

• Vascor explores numerous heart-assist methods, including magnetically suspended turbine pumps.

• Vascor selects a pusher-plate counterpulsation VAD design connected to the descending thoracic aorta, citing rotary-pump blood-shear concerns.

• The Vascor LVAD remains under development and has not been approved for sale or use by the U.S. FDA.

Engineering-driven developer of implantable heart-assist devices; positions its LVAD as a true assist device placed in series with the heart, contrasting with rotary VADs.

• Vascor LVAD

  A left ventricular assist device under development, using a small pusher-plate pump connected to the descending thoracic aorta and operating on the counterpulsation principle; placed in series with the heart.

1. 1VASCOR Inc. - Homevascor.com
2. 2VASCOR Inc. - About Usvascor.com
3. 3Vascor (United States) - Wikidatawikidata.org