A “Chinese heart” could be helping to save lives in the United States despite efforts to decouple the two countries’ biotechnology sectors as a result of rising political tensions.
The fully magnetically levitated pump, which is slightly bigger than a table tennis ball, has been fitted to more than 100 patients with advanced heart failure across the United States as part of a nationwide clinical trial.
The BrioVAD is a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) that helps pump oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body when the heart becomes too weak to do so.
In 2024, it became the first active implantable medical device from China to receive Food and Drug Administration approval for clinical trials in the US.
In a paper published last August, the trial team said that the trials were “designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the BrioVAD by demonstrating non-inferiority to HeartMate 3”.
The HeartMate 3 manufactured by Abbott is currently the only commercially available LVAD in the US.