Press Releases

BioCardia Announces Important Patent on Catheter Drug Delivery to the Heart

South San Francisco, CA., December 11th 2001

BioCardia, Inc., a privately held company located in South San Francisco, CA, announced today the issuance of an important patent for catheter based delivery of drugs to the heart. Drug delivery for cardiology is on the forefront of clinical medicine, and promises to provide better therapeutic treatment and improved outcomes for millions of people per year worldwide within the next decade.

The issuance of patent number RE37463, entitled "Implantable Device for Penetrating and Delivering Agents to Cardiac Tissue", is an important patent in the field of therapeutic angiogenesis to treat coronary artery disease. It is one of more than twenty issued U.S. and international patents in BioCardia's patent portfolio that underlines BioCardia's commitment to the developing field of bio-interventional cardiology.

"With our percutaneous intramyocardial delivery systems, we have developed an appropriate solution for routine clinical use," says company CEO, Peter Altman. "Our mission is to enable doctors to treat patients and improve their lives. While this patent is important, the proof of our capabilities will come from double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials with our therapeutic partners as patient safety and health are our primary objectives."

BioCardia has developed technologies capable of controlled drug delivery to specific sites in the body. Since its inception in 1998, BioCardia has carried out pharmacokinetics and pharmacology studies to demonstrate the "local advantage" achieved by site-specific intramyocardial drug delivery. Such site-specific drug delivery to the heart, as demonstrated by this preclinical work, is expected to contribute greatly to the treatment of a number of cardiovascular diseases.

BioCardia's first efforts in the field of bio-interventional cardiology for the treatment of cardiovascular disease enable safe and routine delivery of cells, genes, proteins, small molecules, and controlled release formulations locally to the cardiovascular system. Gene and protein strategies can produce high local tissue concentrations of absent or under-expressed myocardial gene products including cellular proteins, receptors, and inhibitors. Cellular therapy strategies target replacement and/or augmentation of selected cell populations.
Local delivery of controlled release depots, cells, genes, and proteins promises to advance state of the art treatments at a lower cost for large patient populations suffering from coronary artery disease (CAD), chronic heart failure (CHF), and restenosis after stent placement. These are among the leading causes of death in the western world, and account for more than $250 billion per year in health care costs to society.

The statements in this press release are forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties.

For more information, contact: Investor Relations, BioCardia, Inc. 650-624-0900, .