Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI), today announced the completion of patient enrollment in the CHILL-MI clinical study designed to further evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the company’s InnerCool RTx endovascular cooling system in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI).  

Four research centers will develop high-impact culturally tailored interventions aimed at lowering stroke risk among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. Together the centers are expected to receive $40 million in funding over five years, contingent on the availability of funds from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Up to 10 per cent of patients with high blood pressure are resistant to treatment, which puts them at increased risk of cardiovascular events, including heart attacks. Clinical trials show that catheter-based renal denervation reduces blood pressure in patients who do not respond to conventional drug therapy.

Carolinas HealthCare System’s Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute became the first in the world to implant a branched stent graft specifically designed for branch vessel repair of thoracic aortic aneurysms on Thursday. This is the first arch graft available in a clinical trial and both the device and surgical approach are novel.

Endologix, Inc. (Nasdaq:ELGX), developer and marketer of innovative treatments for aortic disorders, announced today that Roderick de Greef will retire from the Board of Directors at the end of his current term, which ends on May 23, 2013, the date of the Company's annual shareholder meeting. Thomas F. Zenty, III will stand for election as a Class III director to fill the resulting vacant position at the upcoming annual shareholder meeting.

Bayer HealthCare announced today that the New Drug Application (NDA) for its oral investigational compound riociguat has been accepted for filing and granted priority review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of inoperable chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) or with persistent or recurrent CTEPH after pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

Aptus Endosystems, Inc. announced today that it received CE clearance for its thoracic-length Heli-FXTM System.

Stenting stenosis in the internal pudendal artery as a treatment for erectile dysfunction (ED) appears to be safe and effective, but more needs to be understood about disease prevalence and pelvic vasculature, cardiologists say. More immediate is leveraging ED to reduce cardiovascular risk factors.