Edwards Lifesciences Corporation
Edwards Lifesciences is the global leader in the science of heart valves and hemodynamic monitoring. Driven by a passion to help patients, the company partners with clinicians to develop innovative technologies in the areas of structural heart disease and critical care monitoring that enable them to save and enhance lives. Our corporate headquarters are located in Irvine, California, and we supply products and technologies to clinicians in nearly 100 countries around the world.
Company details
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- Business Type:
- Manufacturer
- Industry Type:
- Occupational Health
- Market Focus:
- Globally (various continents)
About us
Edwards lifesciences is the global leader in patient-focused medical innovations for structural heart disease, as well as critical care and surgical monitoring. Driven by a passion to help patients, the company collaborates with the world’s leading clinicians and researchers to address unmet healthcare needs, working to improve patient outcomes and enhance lives.
Heart valve technologies
Dedicated to improving the lives of patients with structural heart disease, our commitment to transformational heart valve technology began in 1960 with the first commercially available heart valve. Edwards has continued to meaningfully advance heart valve therapy, and, more than 50 years later, we remain a global leader in this field. Our offerings include tissue replacement heart valves and repair products, as well as transcatheter heart valves for those patients considered at high or greater risk for conventional valve replacement.
Edwards’ leadership in transcatheter heart valve replacement includes a commitment to meaningful innovation, rigorous scientific study, extensive clinician training and education, and significant investment in new applications of the technology.
Edwards also offers market-leading technologies that facilitate on-pump cardiac surgery procedures through smaller incisions. Edwards’ minimally invasive valve surgery solutions are comprised of soft tissue retractors, venous and arterial cannulae, aortic occlusion, venting, and coronary sinus catheters.
Critical care technologies
Edwards has been advancing the care of the acutely ill for more than 40 years. Starting with the development of Swan-Ganz advanced hemodynamic monitoring devices for measuring cardiovascular performance in high-risk surgical and critically ill patients, Edwards continues to evolve to less-invasive and noninvasive devices to provide valuable hemodynamic insight for an expanded patient population. Edwards has continued to advance hemodynamic monitoring platforms to enable proactive clinical decisions for surgical, anesthesia and critical care clinicians. Edwards is focused on helping clinicians enhance knowledge and standardize practice to improve the quality and efficiency of care. Edwards provides evidence-based programs such as Enhanced Surgical Recovery Program that support the implementation and compliance to protocolized care pathways in the OR and ICU.
Our vascular therapies products, including genuine Fogarty catheters, continue this high standard. Developed and refined in close collaboration with surgeons and interventionalists for over 50 years, Fogarty catheters have been used in millions of procedures worldwide.
Our History
Edwards Lifesciences’ roots date to 1958, when Miles “Lowell” Edwards set out to build the first artificial heart.
Edwards was a 60-year-old, recently retired engineer holding 63 patents in an array of industries, with an entrepreneurial spirit and a dream of helping patients with heart disease. His fascination with healing the heart was sparked in his teens, when he suffered two bouts of rheumatic fever, which can scar heart valves and eventually cause the heart to fail.
With a background in hydraulics and fuel pump operations, Edwards believed the human heart could be mechanized. He presented the concept to Dr. Albert Starr, a young surgeon at the University of Oregon Medical School, who thought the idea was too complex. Instead, Starr encouraged Edwards to focus first on developing an artificial heart valve, for which there was an immediate need.
After just two years, the first Starr-Edwards mitral valve was designed, developed, tested, and successfully placed in a patient. Newspapers around the world reported on what they termed a “miraculous” heart surgery.
This innovation spawned a company, Edwards Laboratories, which set up shop in Santa Ana, California – not far from where Edwards Lifesciences’ corporate headquarters is located today.
In 1966, Edwards Laboratories was purchased by American Hospital Supply Corporation and became American Edwards Laboratories. Then, in 1985, American Edwards was acquired by Baxter International Inc. In early 2000, the company was spun-off as an independent, publicly-held corporation and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “EW.”
Our spirit of innovation remains central to Edwards today. The number of patients requiring treatment for cardiovascular disease and critical illnesses is increasing dramatically, and further growth is expected in the future. Several factors are feeding this dynamic: an aging population, high incidence of rheumatic fever in developing nations, and improved diagnostic techniques that allow physicians to detect problems sooner.
Today, we continue to lead the field of tissue replacement heart valves and repair products and advanced hemodynamic monitoring, which have helped treat and manage more than 2 million patients worldwide.
With more than 50 years of experience, we have grown into a global company, with a presence in approximately 100 countries and approximately 8,500 employees around the world. Each one of them is dedicated to furthering Edwards’ original vision to help clinicians, patients and their families work together as a united community fighting cardiovascular disease and critical illnesses.