Extroducer® data for intramyocardial delivery presented at EuroPCR 2026 in Paris

At this year’s EuroPCR in Paris, SmartCella presented data on the Extroducer® for targeted intramyocardial injections. EuroPCR is one of the leading global conferences in interventional cardiology, gathering a global audience of more than 12,000 participants to focus on device innovation, trial data, and hands-on clinical education. The event is targeted at medical professionals and industry members in the cardiovascular field and participants include interventional cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, researchers, imagers, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. The theme of this year’s event was “Education Saves Lives: Preventing and Solving Complications”. The overarching purpose of the event is to resolve complications through peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and practical training.

Our presentation was named “The Extroducer®: a next generation endovascular device for intramyocardial injections” and given by Staffan Holmin, Professor and CMO of SmartCella. It took place at the EuroPCR Innovation Hub which is the forum exploring how emerging technologies move from idea to clinical practice. The Extroducer® presentation featured also preclinical data generated by our license partner XyloCor Therapeutics.

In a porcine model comparing endovascular delivery via the Extroducer® with epicardial delivery, the data showed 6 times greater myocardial retention of the vector (p<0.01) and 2.2 times higher VEGFA transgene expression at day 3 (p<0.01), with comparable systemic biodistribution and no ultrasound, laboratory, or necropsy abnormalities observed. VEGFA (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A) is a protein that stimulates new blood vessel growth. For this cardiac gene therapy, the goal is to deliver the VEGFA gene to oxygen-deprived heart tissue to trigger that process, so measuring VEGFA expression in the diseased myocardium confirms the delivered gene is being activated at the target site.

The findings support that payload retention at the target tissue is a key driver of biological output and reinforce delivery as one of the central challenges in cardiac gene therapy. The importance of target-tissue retention was a recurring theme in the post-presentation discussion.

Professor Staffan Holmin comments: “The data supports payload retention as a key determinant of therapeutic outcome. This confirms that myocardial delivery is a critical factor in cardiac gene therapy and the results are encouraging. I also appreciated the Q&A session where the conversation reinforced how central target tissue retention is to the field of cardiac gene therapy.”

About the Extroducer®

The Extroducer® is SmartCella’s modality-agnostic endovascular delivery device designed for localized delivery to hard-to-reach organs, tumors, and tissues. The Extroducer® is FDA 510(k)-cleared for use in the peripheral vasculature to inject diagnostic and therapeutic solutions into the perivascular space. It is currently in clinical investigation for additional indications.