Jobs at PICS Therapeutics

The mission of PICS Therapeutics Ltd. is to develop the next generation of heart-assist devices in order to provide treatment to earlier stages of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) than the current generation of Ventricular Assist Devices (VADs). CHF is the leading killer of men and women alike in the world, progressing in severity of symptoms from class I to IV in about five years. As donor hearts meet only 1-2% of the demand for transplants, heart-assist pumps, each costing about $100,000, have been designed to provide treatment alternatives. Most such commercially-available VADs are designed for the end stage of the disease, late class IV CHF, with the pump inlet anastomosed to the apex of the left ventricle and the pump outlet connected to the ascending or descending aorta. Thus the devices are in a parallel flow configuration with that provided by the native heart, they are designed to take over the function of the native heart, and are called Ventricular Assist Devices (VAD) because they are attached to the native ventricle. Implantation of these VADs requires very invasive procedures in very sick patients. Therefore these existing VADs are not used extensively as several medical protocols have to be met for this invasive implantation so late in the disease, and many patients do not qualify for the procedure.