Carmat's second patient dies 9 months after receiving an Artificial Heart implant

Nine months after Carmat implanted their artificial heart in a second patient, the Nanted-based 69 year-old passed away this past weekend, the company revealed this week. The news caused Carmat’s stock to be frozen on the Euronext stock market today, pending more information about the cause of death and the implications. Carmat’s current authorization allows them to operate on opt-in patients with prognoses with less than a month to live, meaning that both the first & second patient outlived expert doctors’ expectations.
The medtech startup, which had seen its first patient die 75 days after transplant, brought their second patient in (he had been at home living a relatively normal life these past few months), and, while the initial check-up showed no issues at the end of April, subsequent symptons required investigation, which ultimately led them to decide to replace the artificial heart with a new one. The patient survived the operation, but passed away on May 2nd due to post-operation complications.
In the coming days, Carmat will seek to understand what went wrong that caused them to have to replace the artificial heart, and whether what went wrong in post-op was something that could’ve been prevented; however, Carmat remains on the literal bleeding edge of innovation.