St. Jude Medical announced that a patient successfully received the first transcatheter Portico aortic valve implant through a specialized procedure known as transapical delivery. A transapical delivery involves the implantation of a heart valve through a small incision in the skin. A device is then threaded through a patient’s cardiovascular system to the left ventricle of the heart. Once there, the aortic heart valve is implanted.

The company’s TAVI devices are usually implanted into a heart valve by a small incision in the femoral artery of a patient’s leg. The device is often used in the treatment of aortic stenosis.

Frank Callighan is the president of the ablation and cardiovascular technologies division at St. Judes. In a prepared statement, he said, "The first patient implanted with the transapical delivery approach represents a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to provide physicians a wide range of options to best treat their patients.”

St. Jude Medical is a healthcare technology company based in Little Canada, Minnesota. With a $16 billion market cap, the company has over 20 manufacturing facilities around the world. The company’s products are currently for sale in over 100 countries. The company is a direct competitor of Boston Scientific and Medtronic. The company’s product lines include artificial pacemakers, electrophysiology catheters, heart valves, cardiac resync devices, spinal cord stimulators and other similar products.

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