About HeartFlow
HeartFlow was founded in 2007 by Charles Taylor, a Stanford bioengineering professor, along with colleagues, based on research applying computational fluid dynamics, the same class of engineering simulation techniques used to model airflow over an aircraft wing, to model blood flow through a patient's coronary arteries, aiming to give cardiologists a way to assess whether a suspected coronary artery blockage is actually significant enough to be restricting blood flow and causing symptoms, without requiring the invasive diagnostic catheterization procedure that has traditionally been the gold-standard method for definitively assessing coronary blockage severity.
HeartFlow's core product, HeartFlow FFRct, takes a standard, non-invasive CT scan of a patient's heart and coronary arteries and uses computational modeling, informed by machine learning, to construct a detailed, personalized 3D model of the patient's specific coronary anatomy, then simulates blood flow through that modeled anatomy to calculate a metric called fractional flow reserve, which indicates how significantly a given blockage is actually restricting blood flow, information that helps cardiologists determine whether a patient is likely to benefit from more invasive interventional treatment such as a stent or bypass surgery, or whether more conservative medical management is appropriate, a determination that has traditionally required an invasive catheterization procedure to assess directly. This non-invasive approach can help avoid unnecessary invasive catheterization procedures for patients whose blockages, once properly analyzed, turn out not to be significantly restricting blood flow, potentially reducing risk, cost, and patient discomfort associated with invasive procedures that ultimately don't reveal actionable findings. HeartFlow's technology has been the subject of extensive clinical validation studies and has received regulatory approvals and increasing insurance coverage as evidence supporting its clinical utility and cost-effectiveness has accumulated. The company went public via a SPAC merger in 2024, and has raised substantial private funding over its history from investors including Wellington Management and Baker Brothers Advisors prior to going public.
