What if an artificial heart could move more like a real one? At Toricardia, we are translating our FlowerHeart soft robotic ventricle into a platform for cardiac research, with a long-term vision for implantable heart replacement.
For advanced heart failure, mechanical circulatory support can be lifesaving. Yet long-term blood-contacting systems still face challenges including hemocompatibility, infection, durability, and the complexity of replicating cardiac function.
Donor hearts are scarce, while the need for advanced circulatory support remains substantial.
Native ventricles generate coordinated thickening, shortening and twisting motions, shaping their interaction with blood and surrounding anatomy.
Researchers also need physiologically meaningful platforms to evaluate devices, procedures, and computational heart models.
FlowerHeart translates a nested-tori representation of ventricular muscle architecture into a soft robotic chamber. Strategically arranged pneumatic artificial muscles produce a coordinated three-dimensional deformation instead of relying on a conventional rigid pumping mechanism.
Our experimental program explores silicone and textile architectures, moving from computational design to physical prototypes and mock-circulatory testing.
Rather than treating the implantable heart as the only path forward, we are exploring a sequence of applications with different levels of validation, development risk and regulatory complexity.
Dynamic ventricular phantoms for device bench testing, medical training and research demonstrations. A potential earlier entry point subject to reproducibility and customer validation.
Controlled physical benchmarks for computational heart models, flow studies and selected experimental pharmaceutical workflows. Requires application-specific measurement protocols and validation.
Conceptual use of biomimetic mechanical loading in engineered cardiac tissue maturation or perfusion. Requires new biological designs and dedicated studies.
Potential future pumping architecture for external perfusion or circulation systems, including selected ECC/ECMO-related research. Blood compatibility, flow characteristics, reliability and safety remain unproven.
Our moonshot: a fully implantable, biomimetic total artificial heart that aims to reproduce native-like mechanics. This demands major advances in biventricular operation, hemocompatibility, durability, controls, energy delivery and clinical validation.
Our FlowerHeart technology has progressed beyond a purely computational concept to physical soft ventricular prototypes and mock-loop testing. The values below are experimental results under specific laboratory conditions, not clinical performance claims.
Toricardia builds on FlowerHeart research spanning biomechanics, computational engineering and soft robotics. As the venture takes shape, we are looking to connect scientific, clinical and entrepreneurial expertise.
Mechanical engineering and bioengineering researcher focused on biomimetic soft ventricles, cardiac mechanics, and experimental validation.
Scientific partners, clinical advisors and potential co-founders will be featured with permission as the company formation progresses.
We welcome conversations with investors, clinical innovators, research groups, potential co-founders and technology partners.