CardiAQ Valve Technologies (CVT) Closes $6.5 Million ‘Series A’ Funding for Its Novel Transcatheter Mitral Valve Implantation (TMVI) System

Over-subscribed offering includes the earliest investors in CoreValve, paves way for first-in-man study

WINCHESTER, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Transcatheter heart valve company CardiAQ Valve Technologies (CVT), which is developing the world’s first self-conforming and self-anchoring technology for Transcatheter Mitral Valve Implantation (TMVI), announced today that it has closed a $6.5 million ‘Series A’ funding led by a group of private investors with proven expertise in the transcatheter heart valve space. The funding, which incorporates conversion of all previous debt, will be used to technically and clinically validate the CVT technology and is expected to carry the Company through initial first-in-man studies.

“This funding was led by Rob Michiels and the same group of angel investors who were the first to recognize the potential of percutaneous aortic valve replacement with their 2002 investment in CoreValve, and also includes a follow-on investment from our previous backers, Broadview Ventures”

“This funding was led by Rob Michiels and the same group of angel investors who were the first to recognize the potential of percutaneous aortic valve replacement with their 2002 investment in CoreValve, and also includes a follow-on investment from our previous backers, Broadview Ventures,” said J. Brent Ratz, President and CEO of the Company. “CVT’s success in raising this over-subscribed round in record time is a dramatic endorsement of the strength of our transcatheter mitral valve implantation concept for patients who suffer from Functional Mitral Regurgitation (FMR) and are often too sick to have surgery. Our valve replacement technology will facilitate a non-surgical alternative that could be more effective than transcatheter repair and just as effective as surgical replacement in a mitral market that is estimated to be $1.2 billion by 2014.”

About CardiAQ Valve Technologies

Privately held CVT, headquartered in Winchester, Mass., is developing a proprietary system for Transcatheter Mitral Valve Implantation (TMVI) based on technology invented by cardiac surgeon Arshad Quadri, M.D., the Company’s Chairman, founder and CMO. Through the combination of a unique anchoring mechanism and a novel delivery catheter, physicians will be able to accurately and securely implant a new mitral valve within a beating heart, thus avoiding open-heart surgery. The CVT procedure is designed to be performed in a cardiac catheterization laboratory (similar to angioplasty or stenting), resulting in less trauma to the patient and substantial cost-savings to the healthcare system.