Admedus has entered into an exclusive distribution agreement with Canadian company Coroneo to sell its Aortic Annuloplasty Ring and a range of specialised surgical instruments for heart valve surgery in Germany and the UK.
Coroneo’s Extra-Aortic Ring is complementary to Admedus’ bio-scaffold CardioCel in the repair of aortic heart valves, according to an Admedus press release. It will be managed and sold through Admedus’ existing sales and marketing infrastructure. Adding the Extra-Aortic Ring to the product portfolio fits well with Admedus’ expansion into the repair and reconstruction heart valve market with CardioCel.
“We are very pleased to have signed this agreement with Coroneo as it expands our product portfolio in the cardiovascular space, as well as adding to our ongoing sales growth and generating increased revenue from our existing in-house resources,” says Admedus chief executive officer, Lee Rodne.
While the distribution agreement with Admedus is initially for the German and UK markets, there is an option to extend the partnership to other regions in the future. The launch of Coroneo products in the UK and Germany will take place in April 2016, with sales expected to contribute to Admedus’ revenue this financial year. The UK and Germany represent two of the largest heart valve markets in Europe.
“This is a very exciting partnership for Coroneo, as we continue to expand the global reach of our unique products…we both provide surgeons with specialised implantable devices and instruments to facilitate the repair and reconstruction of dysfunctional heart valves,” says Coroneo president & chief executive officer, Anthony Paolitto.
Coroneo’s Extra-Aortic Ring is the first annuloplasty device on the market specifically-designed to surgically repair the Aortic valve with a proven, standardised technique. Since the patient’s native valve is preserved, complications attributed to prosthetic valve replacement and compromises to patient’s quality of life, such as the need for lifelong anticoagulation, should be avoided.
The ring supports dystrophic aortic tissue and downsizes a dilated valve annulus in order to restore proper cusp contact to a “leaky” valve. The ring is elastic and should permit the tissues to expand about 10% between diastole and systole, thus mimicking the native valve root physiology. Placing the ring external to the pulsating aorta should avoid contact with the bloodstream and, more importantly, allow the annuloplasty ring to evenly support the aortic pressure over its entire circumferential structure, and not solely through interspaced ring-attachment sutures as would be the case if the ring was implanted internally. In-vivo testing has demonstrated that the Extra-Aortic Ring maintains its elasticity long after tissue ingrowth has stabilised in the expansible textile sheath surrounding the elastic cores of the device.
“Admedus is pleased to add additional products into the sales and marketing product portfolio and we will continue to look for further complementary products as the Company continues to grow,” says Rodne.
Coroneo’s Extra-Aortic Ring was developed in partnership with Emmanuel Lansac, the inventor of external aortic annuloplasty. Lansac was the principal investigator in a large, prospective multi-centre clinical trial (CAVIAAR) comparing aortic valve repair with the Extra-Aortic Ring to aortic valve replacement with a mechanical valved-conduit (Bentall procedure). Lansac practices at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris in Paris, France, and is chairman of AVIATOR; an international working group created through the Heart Valve Society that is dedicated to the advancement of aortic valve repair.
