CEA-Leti and five partners to develop self-powered cardiac pacemaker
A longer-term goal of the project is to reduce healthcare expenditures. Heart failure represents one of the biggest public-health costs today in Europe and the United States. Technological advances in miniaturizing and cutting the power consumption of electronic components, as well as the advent of energy-harvesting devices, have opened the way to new self-powered implants that significantly improve patient comfort and lower cost, particularly by reducing the number of post-implant surgeries required. These devices constitute a new market for active implantable medical devices (AIMDs) for treating or diagnosing heart diseases.
Financed by the Minalogic competitive cluster in Grenoble, the HBS project goals include: the development of a self-powering pacemaker by harvesting the mechanical energy produced by the movements of the heart and eliminating the need for batteries that must be replaced every six to 10 years.
The size of the cardiac pacemaker should be reduced by a factor of eight, from 8 cm3 to 1 cm3. This reduction will make it possible to attach the pacemaker directly to the epicardium, eliminating the need for intravenous introduction of cardiac probes.
Leti is responsible for the mechanical energy-harvesting unit for the prototype, and for designing and creating its capacitance-conversion system. The Sorin Group is positioning itself in the AIMDs market in Europe and globally and hopes to create jobs in the Grenoble region.
Visit CEA-Leti at www.leti.fr
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