Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG)
Coronary Artery Bypass grafting is the gold standard for coronary artery disease treatment caused by blood vessel occlusion/narrowing[1,2,3,4,5,6]
Around 1 million patients undergo CABG surgery each year.
The CABG procedure is normally performed by harvesting patient’s own veins[7]
Progressive vein graft failure frequently occurs following CABG, limiting the long-term success of the operation.[8]
On average, around 20% of veins occlude by the end of the first year after CABG surgery.[6]
Endoscopic harvesting of saphenous veins is an alternative but also expensive option, with inferior patency of vein grafts compared to arterial grafts. Synthetic grafts are currently not available.
Heart Valve Replacement
Heart valve disease affects 2% of the population in industrialised countries, while many of them remain undiagnosed.[9,10]
Hundreds of thousands of patients undertake heart valve intervention every year.[1]
Artificial heart valves currently available can be life savers. However, all existing options involve some compromise.
Patients with biological valves may endure repeated replacement procedures. Mechanical heart valves require life-long anticoagulation treatment, with potentially severe side effects.
Fully synthetic heart valves are currently not available.
Naturally restoring cardiovascular function
Xeltis is pioneering a restorative approach in cardiovascular therapy to overcome the limitations of existing treatment alternatives.
Xeltis cardiovascular devices enable the patient’s own body to naturally restore a new blood vessel or heart valve through a therapeutic process called Endogenous Tissue Restoration, or ETR.
Xeltis’ platform is the world’s first polymer-based technology for natural cardiovascular restoration in clinical trial phase.
Fully synthetic cardiovascular devices can be developed on large-scale. By overcoming cumbersome manufacturing process, such as those of biological valves, these devices would make cardiovascular replacement potentially available more widely at a global level, even in developing countries.


Research on tissue regeneration, supramolecular polymers and electrospinning join with Frank Baaijens’ group starting research on ‘in situ tissue engineering’, now called ETR.
Xeltis and QTIS merge, abandon tissue engineering to focus on ETR and to develop the RestoreX technology platform.
First patients implanted with Xeltis bioabsorbable blood vessels (pulmonary conduit) and patches.
First patient implanted with Xeltis bioabsorbable pulmonary heart valve in clinical trials, with Thierry Carrel as Principal Investigator.
Xplore-2 trial in US
Xeltis Series C financing round closed
- Small diameter blood vessels enter preclinical trial phasePatient enrolment completed for EFS