A man has lived for more than 100 days with an artificial maglev heart working inside his chest. In a landmark moment, he was discharged earlier this year, becoming the first person in the world to leave the hospital with the device embedded in his body.
On July 26 of last year, we reported that the first maglev artificial heart made by the BiVACOR company had been implanted inside the body of a patient at the Texas Heart Institute. The goal of the device was to keep the patient alive long enough to receive a donor heart to be transplanted. Just eight days later, that's exactly what happened: the artificial heart was replaced with a human heart and the patient was discharged.
Since then, four more patients in the US have used the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart (TAH) to bridge the time spent waiting in the hospital until donor hearts could arrive. The longest any one patient had to wait was 27 days before having the transplant operation.
Now, BiVACOR has announced another significant step in their development and use of the artificial heart.
A man in his 40s from New South Wales, Australia, walked out of the hospital in February of this year with the maglev heart powering his circulatory system. He got the implant on November 22, 2024, and received his donor heart on March 6, 2025, marking 105 days that the device kept him alive, and setting a new standard for how long the device could function. During that waiting period, he was also discharged in early February 2025, marking the first time the maglev heart operated outside of a hospital setting.
Home is where the heart is
“Being able to bring Australia along this journey and be part of the first clinical trials is immensely important to me and something that I set out to do from the very beginning,” says Dr. Daniel Timms, the Australian-born inventor of the artificial heart. “It is incredibly rewarding to see our device deliver extended support to the first Australian patient. The unique design and features of the BiVACOR TAH translate into an unmatched safety profile, and it’s exhilarating to see decades of work come to fruition."
The BiVOCOR TAH is unlike other artificial hearts for two primary reasons. First, it uses an electro mechanical rotary pump to move blood through the titanium device and onward through the circulatory system. This is different from other artificial hearts that tend to use flexible polymer diaphragms – that can quickly wear out – to pump the body's blood. Second, the device relies on a single rotor that is suspended inside the device's housing via magnetic levitation – the same technology used by high-speed trains around the world. It is all operated by a small external controller equipped with a rechargeable battery.
The minimum amount of moving parts, along with the lack of bearings and the frictionless environment, make the heart extremely durable.
While it's unclear if the BiVACOR TAH will ever be a long-term heart-replacement solution, David Colquhoun from the University of Queensland and board member of the Heart Foundation told the Guardian that it would have a long way to go, as donor hearts tend to last for 10 years or more. Colquhoun was not involved in the trial.
Still, with the new success, the BiVACOR TAH is showing that it can be a critical bridge to those on transplant lists and can be an extremely important part of extending the survival rate from heart failure.
“The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart ushers in a whole new ball game for heart transplants, both in Australia and internationally," said Chris Hayward, a cardiologist at St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, where the operation took place. "Within the next decade we will see the artificial heart becoming the alternative for patients who are unable to wait for a donor heart or when a donor heart is simply not available.”
You can learn more about the BiVACOR heart and the recent procedure in this video from St. Vincent's.
Sources: Monash University; The Guardian; BiVACOR
