Cleveland HeartLab Inc. acquires MIRISK heart attack risk assessment tool, expanding its product portfolio and cardiovascular disease assessment capabilities

CLEVELAND, Jan. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Cleveland HeartLab (CHL), a premier cardiovascular disease (CVD) management company, announced that it has acquired the innovative MIRISK cardiovascular disease risk assessment tool. Developed at Stanford University School of Medicine and validated in an 8-year, 5,000 patient clinical study, MIRISK is a highly accurate tool for determining a patient's potential long-term risk of a heart attack. MIRISK relies on a proprietary algorithm to analyze key blood proteins associated with the development of vulnerable plaque. Taken together with other known risk factors, MIRISK can determine an individual's probability of experiencing a heart attack within a 5-year timeframe. The acquisition by CHL includes intellectual property, copyrights and brand assets of MIRISK, which were previously owned by Aviir.

"The MIRISK acquisition further illustrates CHL's commitment to commercializing scientifically proven and medically relevant tests," said Jake Orville, President and CEO of the Company. "CHL has a strong history of innovation and this acquisition further advances our mission of aiding clinicians in identifying risk and reducing cardiovascular events."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 600,000 Americans die annually from CVD, more than from all forms of cancer combined. The total cost of CVD in the United States exceeds $400 billion. CVD remains mostly preventable, however, standard risk assessment strategies only identify approximately fifty percent of people who suffer a heart attack. More advanced risk assessment tools can be used to better identify risk, reducing overall cardiovascular events.

"We're incredibly pleased with the acquisition of this technology because it provides Cleveland HeartLab with the most advanced and comprehensive near-term and long-term CVD strategies available today," said Marc Penn, M.D., Ph.D., FACC, Director of Research at Summa Cardiovascular Institute, and Chief Medical Officer of CHL. "Our proprietary CVD inflammation testing has been validated to show risk assessment in hundreds of studies. MIRISK complements our arsenal of prognostic testing. Together, these two represent a significant leap forward in the advancement of CVD risk assessment and, ultimately, heart attack and stroke prevention."

Vulnerable plaque is a key risk factor in heart attack and plays a pivotal role in over 75 percent of all heart attacks. MIRISK provides both the patient and the physician the knowledge necessary to head off potentially life-threatening cardiac events through both medical interventions and lifestyle changes. The Stanford team that pioneered MIRISK, led by Tom Quertermous MD, Director of Research, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University, identified a key group of proteins associated with the development of vulnerable arterial plaque. In a large 8-year study, Dr. Quertermous and team demonstrated that these proteins could be measured, analyzed and used to assess the risk of plaque rupture and heart attack as early as five years prior to the event.

"I'm thrilled to see that a decade of research that led to the MIRISK technology is coming to fruition at a premier clinical laboratory and science-driven company, Cleveland HeartLab." said Dr. Quertermous.  "It's estimated that nearly 80 percent of all heart attacks are preventable, yet we continue to react to them, rather than proactively prevent them. Hundreds of thousands of patients who are currently classified as having low or intermediate risk will, in fact, suffer heart attacks in the next five years. Cleveland HeartLab's combined CVD inflammation testing and MIRISK will empower clinicians with a new level of insight that was unimaginable in cardiology just a decade ago."