ABS CEO Charles Laverty Doesn't Want You to Have Heart Surgery

In North America, the demand for coronary stents is the largest in the world, according to the Global Coronary Stents Market Research Report 2018. Millions of people in North America suffer from strokes annually, placing a huge burden on the economy. Millions of people worldwide get heart surgery every year, placing huge burdens on the medical systems, government budgets and on patients and their families. According to Medtronic, 2 million people are treated instead with stents every year and many can avoid surgery as a result. But stents are not an option for many millions more. So Charles Laverty, CEO of Advanced Bifurcation Systems, has made it his mission to make sure many more have access to alternatives to surgery.

The impact of heart disease

Europe and the Asia-Pacific region are not far behind North America in demand. In the Asia-Pacific region, China has the largest population, and 1.6 million people die from strokes in China annually. It has similar risk factors to western populations. According to the report, the annual estimated expenditure for stroke care in China is about $5.8 billion USD.

The medical insurance industry has also been impacted in a big way by the growth in the coronary stent market, with high treatment costs, and increasing consumer awareness. Consumers are adopting early medical cover, and a rising number of PCI patients is increasing coronary stenting procedures.

The revolutionary dual catheter system

Laverty’s company has developed a dual catheter system for dealing with bifurcate lesions that he believes could revolutionize Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) and reduce the burden on healthcare systems.

The current way to minimize the risk of heart attacks is to insert stents in the coronary arteries in order to keep them open and the blood flowing. Several types of stents are available, but a demand for more efficient and reliable stents is on the rise.

Bifurcation lesions are challenging to treat as no two are alike, and they account for about 20% of interventions. Current treatments of bifurcate lesions are associated with low success rates. There is also more risk of long-term adverse events, like thrombosis and restenosis.

This is why the dual-catheter system represents such a breakthrough. It allows for insertion of stents in mother and daughter arteries simultaneously. All the risks associated with other ways of treating bifurcate lesions are dealt with as there is no overlapping and no gaps. What was a complex, lengthy procedure is reduced to a simple outpatient surgery. In many cases, having heart surgery for blockages in coronary arteries will be reduced, and patients can be back to work in next to no time.

Global impact

This system has the potential to improve the lives of millions of people worldwide. Charles Laverty is currently working on getting partners on six continents lined up and is excited about the prospects for the future. The company is currently going through all the regulatory processes for FDA approval.

The global report on the market for stents reveals that one of the problems in underdeveloped countries, like Africa, is the lack of skilled medical professionals to perform operations. One of the benefits of the ABS platform is that it turns the procedure from a very complex one into a much simpler one, where angles, amount of plaque and other factors are easier to deal with due to the self-aligning nature of the system. Interventional cardiologists do not need much more training than what they already have to use this method. More of them would be able to perform such operations, and the number of patients they could help would increase.

Less open-heart surgery would mean less downtime, fewer risks and a great reduction in costs. Imagine people going in for stent treatment and going home the same day. The benefits to healthcare systems from a cost point of view would be significant. Apart from costs, many more people would be able to experience the benefits of stenting and an improved quality of life. The prospect of heart surgery is a daunting one. Reducing the chances of having to undergo it is a worthy goal.

Charles Laverty is intent on making the ABS platform available worldwide so that millions of people have the opportunity to undergo a potentially less invasive, outpatient procedure instead of complex, invasive open-heart surgery. He is getting partners in six continents on board, ready to move into action when the ABS platform has received FDA approval. Clinical trials are currently, and he is confident that in the future the ABS platform will be the best practice when it comes to treating bifurcate lesions.