Ventrica: Providing the Connection to Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery

In cardiac surgery, the slow shift to perform coronary bypass graft procedures off-pump has turned anastomotic device technology, a long dormant area of product development, into a hot subject at clinical meetings and attracted the attention of large and small device companies. One start-up, Ventrica, was founded to focus on a new bypass procedure, but shifted its emphasis to an important component of that procedure: an automated coronary anastomotic connector. The company's magnetic technology has given it a head-start on this hardest part of the bypass connector puzzle. Some industry experts and surgeons believe that an easy-to-use, reproducible, automated anastomotic device will boost adoption of off-pump bypass surgery, which has lagged far below initial expectations and will also be essential to the future of robotic surgery. Ventrica's challenge is to attract new groups of surgeons to this approach rather than simply preach to already-converted early adopters.