BackBeat Medical Inc. today announced that the company's patented Programmable Hypertension Control (PHC) therapy received first place in the Shark Tank Innovation Competition at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2016 conference in Washington, DC.
"The Shark Tank Innovation Competition is designed to select and highlight the most innovative new concepts in cardiovascular medicine today," said Juan F. Granada, MD, Executive Director and Chief Innovation Officer of the Skirball Center for Innovation at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF). "Seven companies were selected to present at TCT this year from over 60 submissions we received as part of the competition. BackBeat's novel treatment for hypertension was a standout because of its potential to benefit patients in an area with enormous unmet clinical needs. It was selected as the winner by a highly accomplished panel of judges including physician innovators, physician investors, and physicians involved in building companies and developing innovative, high impact therapies."
BackBeat's PHC therapy employs a patented method of cardiac pacing to substantially lower blood pressure while modulating the response of the baroreflex to prevent activation of the autonomic nervous system. Data presented at TCT demonstrated a continued significant reduction in blood pressure of 13.9 mmHg over a one year period in 25 patients who received BackBeat's PHC-enabled Moderato™ pacemaker using standard commercially available leads and standard lead placement. PHC therapy can also be readily incorporated into marketed pacemakers and could be added to already implanted pacemakers as a software download performed in the clinic.
Darren Sherman, co-founder of BackBeat Medical, added, "We are honored to receive this award. TCT is one of the premier forums for showcasing innovation in interventional and vascular medicine. We are humbled to have our technology recognized by such an esteemed panel of judges. Even more, we are excited to continue to deliver on the promise of PHC therapy as we look to realize its significant clinical and commercial promise in the future."
About Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT)
Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) is the annual scientific symposium of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation and is the world's largest and most important educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For over 25 years, TCT has been the center of cutting-edge educational content, showcasing the latest advances in current therapies and clinical research.
About BackBeat Medical
BackBeat Medical Inc. is a medical technology company founded in 2010 to develop novel cardiac stimulation-based therapies for hypertension and heart failure. BackBeat has developed a patented cardiac pacing-based treatment for hypertension (HTN) called programmable hypertension control (PHC) therapy. PHC is comprised of proprietary pacing algorithms that can be readily incorporated into standard pacemakers using standard leads and standard lead placement and thus has broad applicability. PHC offers a new potent device-based HTN therapeutic alternative potentially opening up a large market to treat HTN patients, particularly HTN patients who already have or require a pacemaker. Clinical results generated to date using BackBeat's own Moderato™ pacemaker incorporating PHC algorithms demonstrate that this therapy has a substantial and sustained therapeutic effect on blood pressure as determined by both in-office cuff measurements (average reduction of 24 mmHg from baseline) and 24-hour ambulatory measurements (average reduction of 14 mmHg from baseline) with clinical follow up extending up to two years.
