Petaling Jaya, Malaysia – From July 26 to July 28, the 15th Malaysian Cardiovascular Interventional Symposium with Live Transmission (MYLIVE2018) took place in Petaling Jaya, which is the biggest city in Selangor, Malaysia, and gathered more than 1,000 surgeons from Southeast Asia. The symposium was aimed to share the latest results of the researches on cardiovascular intervention, increase the understanding of cardiovascular diseases and promote the improvement in interventional techniques, with the help of exchanges between specialists and live streaming of surgeries. Shanghai MicroPort Medical (Group) Co., Ltd. ("MicroPort®") attended the symposium and held a Firehawk® Rapamycin Target Eluting Coronary Stent System ("Firehawk®") satellite symposium to demonstrate in full extent the innovative technology and outstanding performance of Firehawk® to the specialists in attendance.
On July 26, Dato Dr. Omar Ismail from Hospital Pulau Pinang delivered the opening remark for the satellite symposium, before introducing Firehawk® to the audience and praising MicroPort® for its relentless pursuit of technology development and honing the clinical studies. Afterwards, Professor William Wijns from National University of Ireland, Galway, who was the principal investigator in the latest TARGET All-Comers ("TARGET AC") trial of Firehawk®, gave the audience a videoed greeting, saying that the Firehawk® with internationally high level had been widely recognized by the top European interventional cardiologists. He also hoped that the attending experts could fully experience the excellent performance of Firehawk® at the symposium and bring high-quality medical solutions to the local patients. MicroPort® Clinical & Medical Affairs Vice President Ming Zheng, who is also head of the MicroPort® Knowledge & Action Institute, presented the global clinical trials of Firehawk® to the audience. He went into detail about the outstanding performance demonstrated by Firehawk® in the TARGET AC trial, which was a global multicenter randomized controlled study, from a perspective of the trial design.
During the satellite symposium, Dr. Ong Tiong Kiam from the Pusat Jantung Sarawak clinical study site introduced the TARGET Malaysia Registry trial of Firehawk® ("TARGET MR") and the latest progress. As part of the TARGET-series trials, TARGET MR, which is the second large-scale overseas trial of Firehawk® after the TARGET AC trial in Europe, is a prospective multicenter registry study jointly driven by MicroPort® and Ministry of Health of Malaysia. It is expected to enroll a total of 1,153 patients at 10 local clinical trial sites, with the primary endpoints being the Target Lesion Failure (TLF) at 12 months. Subsequently, with Dr. Liew Houng Bang from Queen Elizabeth II Hospital acting as the moderator, four junior surgeons, namely Dr. Ho Kian Hui, Dr. Faizal Khan, Dr. Lee Kuo Ting and Dr. Khaw Chee Sin, spoke about cases of coronary infarction, acute myocardial infarction, FFR-guided PCI in patients with multivessel diseases, and emergency PCI patient transfer and treatment. All of them gave favorable comments about the performance of Firehawk® in complex lesions, commending the cardiovascular interventional device for its world-class quality.
As a major country covered in China's Belt and Road Initiative, Malaysia has a strong demand for cardiovascular interventional products with a population of more than 30 million. Thus far, MicroPort® has obtained registration approvals from the Malaysian authorities for Firehawk®, FOXTROT™ Pro PTCA Balloon Catheter and FOXTROT™ NC PTCA Balloon Catheter. With an increasingly richer cardiovascular product line, MicroPort® has provided the local surgeries with more comprehensively therapeutic solutions, so as to benefit the local patients.