CardiacAssist Expands Market Penetration of TandemHeart® Extracorporeal Circulatory Support System among Heart Surgeons, Cardiologists and Electrophysiologists

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CardiacAssist Inc.:

“The versatility of TandemHeart is designed to be unsurpassed in the marketplace”

(Click here to see video, “A Patient Success Story”)

Privately held CardiacAssist Inc. announced today that the Cardiovascular Institute of Stanford (University) Hospital & Clinics (Palo Alto, Calif.) is one of the newest cardiac centers to begin using TandemHeart®, the Company’s FDA-cleared extracorporeal circulatory support system. TandemHeart is now being used in nearly 90% of the “Best U.S. Heart & Heart Surgery Hospitals” as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, with nearly 1,800 procedures performed at nearly 150 hospitals across the United States. Last month, CardiacAssist announced record nine-month financial results for 2009 compared to results for the same period in 2008.

TandemHeart can be placed rapidly by both interventional cardiologists in a cath lab and by cardiac surgeons in an operating room to provide short-term circulatory support to patients requiring additional cardiac assistance. The device provides effective and reliable temporary circulatory support for critically ill patients. Hemodynamic support includes a high net blood-flow rate of up to five liters per minute in the catheterization lab or up to eight liters per minute in the OR—more than twice the amount of competing technologies—and is fully reimbursed by Medicare under existing DRG codes.

Despite the presence of much larger competitors such as Abiomed and Thoratec, TandemHeart has been added to the cardiac care programs at more than 20 centers in recent months. This is a clear indication of the important role that the TandemHeart plays in the market for extracorporeal circulatory support.

“The versatility of TandemHeart is designed to be unsurpassed in the marketplace,” said Michael Garippa, CEO and President. “For example, of the nearly 1800 cases performed with TandemHeart to date by heart surgeons and cardiologists, 33% have been for ventricular dysfunction; 28% have been for high-risk cardiac surgery; and 39% have been for percutaneous cardiac interventions. As we announced last month, our record-setting revenues for the nine months of 2009 bear strong testimony to the undeniable truth that TandemHeart is a breakthrough model for treating cardiac patients quickly and aggressively. We continue to believe that TandemHeart is destined to become standard of care in extracorporeal circulatory support,” Garippa said.

CardiacAssist is exhibiting (booth #404) its TandemHeart system at this week’s annual meeting of the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association (STSA) in Marco Island, Fla.

About CardiacAssist

Headquartered in Pittsburgh, privately held CardiacAssist is a growing and profitable medical technology company that develops, manufactures and markets cardiac assist devices. The Company has developed the world’s first and only proprietary platform, FDA-cleared and CE-Marked TandemHeart®—which provides a short-term extracorporeal circulatory support system for both cardiologists and cardiac surgeons.