Success for Australia's first Total Artificial Heart implant

Australia’s first implant of a BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart has been announced as an unmitigated clinical success, after the recipient of the implant was discharged from hospital in February and received a donor transplant in March.

The titanium-based Total Artificial Heart is a blood pump that has been designed as a bridge to keep patients alive until a donor heart transplant becomes available, although the long-term ambition is for implant recipients to be able to live with the device without needing a transplant. The world’s first BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart implant occurred on 9 July 2024 at The Texas Heart Institute at Baylor St Luke’s Medical Center in the Texas Medical Center, with a suitable donor heart identified eight days later. Since that operation, four more implants have taken place in the US. The Australian implant of the Total Artificial Heart is the first to take place outside the US and the sixth in the world.

The Australian implant — the first in a series of procedures planned as part of the Monash University-led Artificial Heart Frontiers Program, which benefited from a $50 million grant from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund — took place on 22 November 2024 at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney in a six-hour procedure led by renowned cardiothoracic and transplant surgeon Dr Paul Jansz. After a few weeks in the ICU, the patient was kept under observation in the ward by clinicians including heart failure and transplant cardiologist Professor Chris Hayward.

The patient — a man in his 40s who was experiencing severe heart failure — ultimately became the first in the world to be discharged from hospital with the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart in early February 2025. He finally received a donor heart transplant on 6 March 2025 — a record 105 days after obtaining the Total Artificial Heart.

“It is incredibly rewarding to see our device deliver extended support to the first Australian patient,” said BiVACOR founder Dr Daniel Timms, the inventor of the Total Artificial Heart. “The unique design and features of the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart translate into an unmatched safety profile, and it’s exhilarating to see decades of work come to fruition.

“The entire BiVACOR team is deeply grateful to the patient and his family for placing their trust in our Total Artificial Heart. Their bravery will pave the way for countless more patients to receive this lifesaving technology.”

Hayward said the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart would transform heart failure treatment internationally, stating, “The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart ushers in a whole new ball game for heart transplants, both in Australia and internationally. Within the next decade we will see the artificial heart becoming the alternative for patients who are unable to wait for a donor heart or when a donor heart is simply not available.”

Monash University’s Vice Chancellor and President, Professor Sharon Pickering, said the Artificial Heart Frontiers Program is an example of the transformative innovation our nation can achieve when universities, industry and government come together.

“Over the next three years and beyond, the AHFP Consortium’s expert engineers, clinicians and researchers will accelerate this Australian-grown, world-leading research and development program to further develop the TAH and related game-changing mechanical circulatory support devices that will deliver substantial global health and economic benefits through urgently needed solutions for advanced forms of heart failure, for which there are limited or no available treatments.

“Monash’s world-leading cardiac and engineering research, and our commitment to working with partners to address global challenges, has been central to the opportunity now before us of developing an Australian-based cardiac device industry.”

Image credit: BiVACOR.