“For decades we have talked about heart transplant being supply limited. If approved by the FDA, with the use of OCS Heart System for extended criteria donors, and DCD hearts, we can access to a significantly greater suitable donor poll, said Dr. Jacob Schroder, surgical director of heart transplantation at Duke University Medical Center and the principal investigator for the OCS Heart EXPAND Trial. “As the donor pool expands, more patients can have access to this life saving therapy. If the OCS Heart System is approved, I believe the industry will reverse its thinking and open up the ‘demand’ to a greater patient population that never had a chance at a new heart and a better life.”
“The potential opportunity to expand the donor pool for our heart transplant candidates using the TransMedics device in select patients would be a major advance in the field of heart transplantation,” said Dr. Maryjane Farr, medical director of the transplant program at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
EXPAND and CAP Trial
The OCS Heart EXPAND trial met its primary effectiveness endpoint. It showed that the use of the OCS Heart System resulted in successfully transplanting 84% - more than 8 out 10 of the extended-criteria donor hearts that are seldom used for transplant today in the U.S. using cold ischemic storage preservation. The post-transplant rate of severe Primary Graft Dysfunction was 8%, which is well below the rates reported in the literature and there were no unexpected safety findings. Patient survival at 30-days post-transplant was 97%. All-cause survival was 92% at 6 months and 87% at 12 months. Importantly, cardiac-related survival was 96% at both 6 and 12 months, these survival rates are comparable to U.S. standard heart transplant outcomes.
About TransMedics Group, Inc.
TransMedics is the world’s leader in portable extracorporeal warm perfusion and assessment of donor organs for transplantation. Headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts, the company was founded to address the unmet need for more and better organs for transplantation and has developed technologies to preserve organ quality, assess organ viability prior to transplant, and potentially increase the utilization of donor organs for the treatment of end-stage heart, lung, and liver failure.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward looking statements with respect to future events, including those that affect potential regulatory approvals for our OCS Heart System. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment and new risks emerge from time to time. It is not possible for our management to predict all risks, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in or implied by any forward-looking statements we may make. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this press release may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. Some of the key factors that could cause actual results to differ include: that we continue to incur losses; our need to raise additional funding; our existing and any future indebtedness, including our ability to comply with affirmative and negative covenants under our credit agreement to which we will remain subject to until maturity, and our ability to obtain additional financing on favorable terms or at all; the fluctuation of our financial results from quarter to quarter; our ability to use net operating losses and research and development credit