Dassault Systèmes intends to use its Living Heart Project which is an advanced visualization 3D platform across the Indian healthcare sector.   Living Heart Project developed by the Simulia division of the company is a heart simulation which will be used as doctor-patient education to support improved cardiovascular health practice.

The company has invested over $1 billion in research and acquisitions to bring in solutions for pharmaceutical discovery, medical device development and healthcare.  Simulia which is an engineering simulation software enables development of  high quality, validated models for human organs that could be used for design, virtual testing and ultimately clinical applications. The effort follows the company’s long term commitment to develop a broad range of solutions for healthcare.

Under the Living Heart Project, Dassault created  a human heart model that opens opportunities to virtually probe parameters and guide treatment planning. Going by the Indian incidence of cardiac diseases, there was a need to make available this heart simulation software in the country .

“Heart simulation will be commercially available in India for applications that have been validated through the project. Our  engineers in India will be trained on the use of the heart and will provide local support for cardiovascular specialists who use the heart simulation,” Scott Berkey, chief executive officer, Simulia, Dassault Systèmes told Pharmabiz in an email.

“We hope to use the advanced visualisation capabilities of the 3D experience platform with the heart simulation as a tool for patient education to support improved cardiovascular health practices,” he adds.

In May 2014, the company had signed a 5-year agreement with the US FDA to work with the members of the Living Heart Project to evaluate the use of the heart for regulatory submission of medical devices, such as pacemakers, stents and replacement valves. The heart simulation has now been released to the project members for beta testing.

For India, Dassault has a range of potential applications for the medical industry and healthcare professionals. “We do plan to explore these uses as the simulation capabilities expand and we are able to build the appropriate applications for these different uses”, he says.

The heart simulation was built on decades of development of commercial simulation software development, applied to other industries. The translation of that technology began with exploratory work about 18 months ago and the project was officially launched last year. Several generations of the heart have been developed, improving with each one based on the guidance of the specialists who are part of the project.

The project was structured as collaboration between a team from Dassault Systèmes with over 30 organizations across research, industry, cardiovascular, medicine and regulatory agencies. At this point, more than 100 individual contributors have access to the heart simulation and can contribute to the direction of the development, he said.