Australian Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said the VentrAssist product was a worthy recipient of the Federal Government's Commercial Ready Grant, a program which rewards innovation by providing funding to businesses to commercialise their products.
"This funding will facilitate adoption of new high value add manufacturing technologies in Australia to be used domestically and for export.
"It will also help create long term skills and employment opportunities in the design, manufacture and marketing of active implantable devices," Mr Macfarlane said.
Ventracor Chief Executive Officer Peter Crosby said: "We are very pleased the Australian Government recognises the value and global potential of Ventracor‘s Australian-developed technology.
"Continuous and rapid innovation helps grow market share in the medical device industry and this generous funding will help us maintain our culture of innovation," Mr Crosby said.
Mr Crosby added, "Ventracor has the greatest world wide experience of any third generation centrifugal LVAD with over 42 cumulative patient years of support in more than 80 implants and 13 implanting centers in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the US.
We believe there are more VentrAssist implants than all other 3G centrifugal pumps combined. The VentrAssist is approved for sale in Europe, and is the only third generation LVAD in clinical trials in the US, and the only centrifugal pump in clinical trials in the US."
Commercial Ready is a competitive merit-based grant program supporting innovation and its commercialisation administered by AusIndustry which provides $200 million a year to small and medium enterprises.
About Ventracor
Ventracor is a global medical device company which has developed an implantable blood pump, the VentrAssist left ventricular assist device (LVAD), as therapy to improve the lives of heart failure patients and their families. Ventracor is dedicated to building partnerships with healthcare professionals to make the VentrAssist the standard-of-care worldwide.