The stand of Edwards Lifesciences at the 2020 China International Import Expo presents the company's efforts in innovating medical science technologies. (PHOTO / CHINA DAILY)

Edwards Lifesciences is showcasing its latest technologies at the ongoing third China International Import Expo, which runs from Nov 5-10, in Shanghai.

We became an independent company 20 years ago and we established our China headquarters in Shanghai at about that time. We have been providing technology in China for all of that time.

Michael Mussallem, chairman and CEO of Edwards Lifesciences

With its roots dating back to 1958, the United States-headquartered medical technology company is dedicated to patient-focused medical innovations for structural heart disease, critical care and surgical monitoring.

It is attending the CIIE for the first time, showcasing its latest transcatheter aortic valve replacement solution.

The new technology, according to Michael Mussallem, chairman and CEO of Edwards Lifesciences, is set to help change the way doctors perform heart valve surgeries.

This new technology is developed in the hope to enable doctors to "change a heart valve without opening the chest and without stopping the heart", according to Mussallem.

"We are able to collapse a heart valve onto a very thin catheter, in a small hole in your upper thigh to advance it up your aorta around your heart over the diseased heart valve and inflate a balloon where it deploys the valve. The new valve pushes the diseased valve aside and immediately starts beating," he explained.

Mussallem said he hopes this technology can make a difference and contribute to the Healthy China 2030 national health plan because "we have a chance to change people's lives without them having to go through an open-heart surgery".

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China is important to Edwards Lifesciences, which has 288 people on the payroll at its China office, according to Mussallem. "We became an independent company 20 years ago and we established our China headquarters in Shanghai at about that time. We have been providing technology in China for all of that time."

The company also provided help to doctors and patients in China during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We are fortunate, as a successful company, to be able to make a donation of 190,000 medical gloves and 7,000 surgical masks to Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic," Mussallem said.

"We partnered with organizations and I understand that we were able to donate about 1 million yuan (US$149,410) to COVID-19 treatment and prevention projects in China," he said.

From Feb 29 to June 30, Edwards sold 19 units of hemodynamic monitoring systems to 11 hospitals in China, serving more than 900 patients in intensive care units, according to the company.

It sent more than 20 employees to front-line hospitals during the period to provide training and assist with installation of critical care technologies to monitor COVID-19 patients.

"You could imagine that it was a challenge for us, just like everybody else," Mussallem said.

"We tried to carefully keep our team safe but knowing we also had a responsibility to the community in China to try and help them," he added.

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Mussallem expressed his admiration for Edwards' employees, saying, "They really inspired me, especially our people that went into work in hospitals every day because we know this was where the risk was the highest."

"Our people really feel deeply about their culture－our life's work is helping patients," Mussallem said. "In many cases there wasn't perfect protective equipment and we didn't have perfect knowledge of how risky COVID-19 was in those early stages. But people just said 'I must help' and they moved ahead.

"It was really inspiring for me personally to hear these stories of what our employees did, especially in those early days."

Mussallem said Edwards looks forward to being a true partner with Chinese clinicians and to bringing the latest technologies to the country.

"We are committed to innovation and we spend 17-18 percent of our sales on research and development.

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"This is what we love doing－changing the lives of patients. And this is why the CIIE meeting is such a great opportunity for us to be able to share Edwards' life-saving and life-enhancing technologies."