TECHNOLOGY
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to get tested properly and in the past that has led to unsafe products entering the market – such as Flecainide , which was found to cause arrhythmias in patients even though it was originally designed to prevent arrhythmias . The same can be said for Vioxx , an alternative to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of pain associated with osteoarthritis , which was subsequently found to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and was withdrawn from the market worldwide after contributing to the deaths of thousands , perhaps hundreds of thousands , of people .
Both cautionary tales , but Novoheart has managed to design living heart tissues which deliver predictive accuracy of 90 % or more and , as a result , could make the screening process far safer , faster and cheaper . The mini hearts act as advanced human heart surrogates and can be utilised in a variety of ways . The founders of Novoheart believe that the technology can be a catalyst in help-
OCTOBER 2018