Medtronic, Inc has formed a joint venture with Genzyme Corporation to accelerate the development of new treatments for some of the most intractable forms of cardiovascular disease.

The new venture, named MG Biotherapeutics, will work to develop therapies that leverage the complementary strengths of two companies - Medtronic's experience in developing delivery devices for targeted therapy and Genzyme's skills biological approaches for cardiac repair.
Under the agreement, the two companies will collaborate on an ongoing phase II clinical trial investigating the use of cell therapy to repair damaged heart tissue and bring this therapy to market, a company release stated.

They will also join in a long-term cell therapy research into repairing damaged heart tissue.

"We are enthusiastic about collaborating with Genzyme in an effort that we believe has the potential to change the way heart disease will be treated in the coming decades," said Stephen Oesterle, Medtronic's senior vice president of medicine and technology. "This collaboration builds on Medtronic's Mission in treating chronic disease and its record of applying broad expertise in biomedical engineering to address some of the most pressing health problems," he added.

Duke Collier, executive vice president, Genzyme, said, "Combining our research and clinical programme in cell therapy with Medtronic's expertise will greatly enhance our efforts to bring innovative biology to bear on serious heart disease."

The companies will co-fund Genzyme's ongoing Myoblast Autologous Graft in Ischemic Cardiomyopathy (MAGIC) phase 2 clinical trial of cell therapy to repair damaged heart tissue. This trial is designed to determine whether cell therapies can be used to reverse damage done to cardiac muscle following a heart attack, or to safely halt a patient's further progression of heart failure, a usually incurable condition affecting more than 20 million individuals worldwide.