VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Mar 8, 2018) - (TSX VENTURE:NVH)(FRANKFURT:3NH)

  • "Human heart-in-a-jar" technology recognized by the scientific community for its unique ability to reproduce key physiological and pharmacological features of the native human heart, including clinically recognized responses to a variety of pharmacological compounds and interventions.
  • The only tool available in the market that provides measurement of the clinically complex parameters of the human heart, being utilized by drug developers for accurate preclinical testing to predict the effectiveness and safety of new drugs, maximizing the successes in drug discovery whilst minimizing costs and harm caused to patients.
  • Novoheart has exclusive global rights to this IP protected world's first technology.
  • As the flagship technology of the Company's MyHeart™ Platform, "human heart-in-a-jar" is being commercialized to pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Novoheart ("Novoheart" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:NVH)(FRANKFURT:3NH) is pleased to announce that it has published a comprehensive study of the world's first human heart-in-a-jar, in the prestigious bioengineering journal Biomaterials. The peer-reviewed paper showcases the human heart-in-a-jar's unique ability to recapitulate multiple important and complex biological properties of the native human heart, including clinically recognized responses to a variety of pharmacological compounds and interventions.

"This is an exciting milestone for the Company and we anticipate that the publication of this study will lead to significant additional interest from pharmaceutical partners in the MyHeart™ Platform," said Dr. Ronald Li, CEO of Novoheart. "In an industry where drug attrition and withdrawals are most commonly associated with cardiotoxicity, the 'human heart-in-a-jar' represents an unprecedented high-fidelity model of the human heart outside of the body, offering a new and compelling alternative to traditional animal models as litmus tests for selecting the best drug candidates to advance into clinical trials."

The human ventricular cardiac organoid chamber (hvCOC), also known as "human heart-in-a-jar", is a truly three-dimensional, bioengineered miniature cardiac pump, representing a highly sophisticated bio-artificial heart construct exclusively available from Novoheart's MyHeart™ Platform. In this publication, the hvCOC is comprehensively characterized in detail, including its remarkable ability to simulate key characteristics and behaviors of the native human heart at the genetic, electrical and mechanical levels. As a result of its unique cardiomimetic configuration, the hvCOC also reproduces responses to a range of clinically tested therapeutics, including drug classes to which other existing stem cell-derived cell and tissue models are notoriously insensitive.

The publication is the result of extensive research led by Novoheart's scientific co-founders, CEO Ronald Li and CSO Kevin Costa, in collaboration with a multinational team of investigators from Sweden's Karolinska Institutet (whose Nobel Assembly selects and awards Nobel Prizes in Physiology and Medicine), the University of Hong Kong, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Manhattan, New York, with part of the study performed under an industry-academia collaboration jointly funded by Novoheart and the Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC) of the Hong Kong government.

"We are pleased to share with the scientific community the unique features of our hvCOC, including the ability to recapitulate pressure-volume and electrophysiological characteristics of the heart, and how it compares to other existing human cardiac cell and tissue models," said Dr. Kevin Costa, CSO of Novoheart. "The peer-reviewed article serves as a testimony to the quality and importance of the research, which is the fundamental groundwork behind the 'human heart-in-a-jar' model."

Due to appear shortly in print, Novoheart's publication, titled "Bioengineering an electro-mechanically functional miniature ventricular heart chamber from human pluripotent stem cells", can be accessed online here.

About Novoheart:

Novoheart is a global stem cell biotechnology company pioneering an array of next-generation human heart tissue prototypes. It is the first company in the world to have engineered miniature living human heart pumps that can revolutionize drug discovery, helping to save time and money for developing new therapeutics. Also known as 'human heart-in-a-jar', Novoheart's bio-artificial human heart constructs are created using state-of-the-art and proprietary stem cell and bioengineering approaches and are utilized by drug developers for accurate preclinical testing as to the effectiveness and safety of new drugs, maximizing the successes in drug discovery whilst minimizing costs and harm caused to patients.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", and "intend", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could", "should", or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation; statements about the Company's future plans, its goals and expectations, and the potential applications of its MyHeart™ platform are forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the risks identified in the management discussion and analysis section of Novoheart Holdings Inc.'s interim and most recent annual financial statement or other reports and filings with the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable Canadian securities regulators. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the respective companies undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.