Bellerophon Therapeutics, Inc., recently announced positive outcomes from an animal study that assessed the effect of bioabsorbable cardiac matrix (BCM) on the mechanics of the heart after a heart attack.
The results were presented during the Clinical Forum of the European Society of Cardiology’s Heart Failure 2015/2nd World Congress on Acute Heart Failure and the poster titled “Intracoronary artery deployment of a bioabsorbable cardiac matrix (BCM) alginate device improves mechanics of the infarct region in pigs.” The poster can be consulted on the Company’s website at www.bellerophon.com/ESC_Heart_Failure_2015.
A pig model of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) was utilized in this pre-clinical study of BCM to test this matrix’s efficacy to reduce the impact of a heart attack. BCM was administered via intracoronary injection 4 days after myocardial infarction (MI). Data resultant from this test showed that administering BCM causes reduction of ventricular remodelling as measured by left ventricular end systolic volume index (LVESI) and left ventricular end diastolic volume index (LVEDI) improvements, when compared to placebo. Further, when compared to placebo, BCM also improved measures of contractility in the myocardium area that suffered infarct.
The progress of BCM in this specific pre-clinical study was identical to the design of the 303-patient double-blind, placebo-controlled trial developed by the company, that completed enrolment in late December. This trial, PRESERVATION-1, intends to test the value of BCM to prevent cardiac remodelling and subsequent severe heart failure after heart attack.
