Medical company prepares to double in size

New heart/lung bypass product spurs growth

An O’Hara medical products company is preparing to double its size and increase staff after launching a product line intended to simplify resuscitation of patients in life-threatening situations.

TandemLife Inc., which changed its name from CardiacAssist last year as part of a rebranding effort, has begun marketing the TandemLife Priming Tray, a product designed to simplify and speed heart and lung bypass for critically ill patients. The company is targeting the more than 500,000 Americans who need emergency heart care each year, but don’t always get it.

“This product line is all about simplifying the process of putting a patient on life support,” COO Travis Deschamps said.

TandemLife has an 18,000square-foot headquarters in the RIDC office park, but later this year, the company plans to double its size by moving into a 36,000-square-foot facility there, which will include a 2,200square-foot production facility, Mr. Deschamps said.

The company’s corporate strategy is to simplify its lifesaving products, making them available to smaller hospitals that may not have a perfusionist, who operates a heart-lung bypass machine, or the resources of a big academic medical center. TandemLife’s competitive advantage is the short set-up time needed by a nurse and doctor before use, said president and CEO John Marous.

“This takes this therapy to a whole new level,” Mr. Marous said. “It’s really a matter of trying to look at what the real world problems are and to get the technology to patients sooner while cutting costs.

“Reducing the root cost — that’s what we’re trying to get at.”

Last year, more than 350,000 people suffered a cardiac arrest outside the hospital with a survival rate of just 12 percent, according to the American Heart Association, an estimate that some experts say is high. During the same year, 209,000 hospital patients also suffered cardiac arrest, with a survival rate of 25 percent.

Only about 200 of the 5,400

medical centers nationwide, including UPMC Presbyterian and Allegheny General hospitals, perform emergency heart and lung bypass procedures in such critically ill patients.

The procedure, which reroutes blood flow around the patient’s heart and lungs, buys time for doctors to treat underlying medical problems, Mr. Deschamps said.

TandemLife wants to increase the number of hospitals where such procedures can be performed to about 1,400 by simplifying the company’s newest line of products, allowing doctors to do bypass procedures within minutes rather than up to an hour using conventional methods.

The privately held company employs 54 people, a number that is expected to grow to 75 next year, partly resulting from the creation of an inside sales department, Mr. Deschamps said.

TandemLife was cofounded by Allegheny General Hospital heart surgeon George Magovern in 1996.