BioCardia Issued New Patent for Delivery of Cardiac Cell Therapy Through Wrist Artery

Technology May Enable Same-Day Outpatient Cell Therapy Procedures

SAN CARLOS, Calif., Sept. 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BioCardia, Inc. [Nasdaq: BCDA] a leader in the development of comprehensive solutions for cardiovascular regenerative therapies, today announced the issuance of U.S. Patent No: 10,780,248 for a “Radial and Transendocardial Delivery Catheter” that further protects the Helix Biotherapeutic Delivery System and enhances its cell therapy delivery capabilities. The patent does not expire until after September 29, 2034.

This patent covers a needle injection catheter system appropriate for transradial biotherapeutic delivery to the heart, and strengthens the Company’s clinical stage biotherapeutic programs in heart failure and chronic myocardial ischemia.

“Delivery is critically important to successful biotherapeutic treatment. You can have a promising cell therapy, but if sub-par delivery doesn’t facilitate biologic retention by the heart or has a poor safety profile, it can cause a therapy to fail,” said BioCardia CEO Peter Altman, PhD. “At BioCardia, we have always recognized the important role delivery plays in the overall success of our therapeutics and in their promise to improve the lives of millions of patients with heart disease. This additional patent protection for our Helix system used in a transradial approach accessing the heart through an artery in the wrist, in addition to the transfemoral approach, enables us to offer the most robust delivery capabilities of any cell therapy developer.”

Cardiac catheter insertion through the small transradial artery in the wrist is growing in popularity as a delivery approach for percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI). It is used outside of the U.S. in more than 23 percent of PCIs, according to some estimates.¹ This level of adoption is due to increasing evidence that transradial delivery increases patient safety by reducing bleeding complications, and may help reduce costs by decreasing hospital admissions, length of stay and patient risk.² Transradial artery PCI is expected to reduce costs to the healthcare system through same-day discharge, which costs nearly $3,700 less than transfemoral PCI without same-day discharge.³