The federal government has halted previously approved funding for the study and manufacturing of a pediatric heart pump developed by researchers at Ithaca, N.Y.-based Cornell University.
Engineering professor James Antaki, PhD, and his team began working on the pediatric heart pump, called the PediaFlow, in 2002. The device aims to improve blood flow in children with congenital and acquired heart disease while they wait for a donor heart to become available for transplant. Instead of remaining connected to a compressor in the hospital, the PediaFlow would allow children to remain at home while waiting for a donor heart, according to a May 6 news release from the university.
While previous federal funding wrapped up in 2019, the Defense Department accepted the team’s latest grant proposal, which would prepare the device for in-human clinical trials, manufacturing and regulatory approvals, on March 30.
On April 8, the Defense Department sent a stop-work order to Dr. Antaki with the news that the funding, expected to total $6.7 million over the course of four years, would not be granted, according to a May 10 NBC News report.
Dr. Antaki said about 40,000 children are born with some type of heart condition every year; he added that number is not large enough to “incentivize” funding from device manufacturers.
“For that reason, our only option is federal funding,” he said in the release. “It also explains why devices like this are not being developed in other countries because they don’t have the benefit of federal funding. We’ve been very fortunate to make it as far as we have because of federal funding.”
