Beyond the heart valve: From Queensland cattle to a sharper patient edge

A heart valve made for a patient thousands of kilometres away can trace its origins to a Queensland cattle farm. From Australian bovine tissue and specialist hand-sewing to the operating theatre, Edwards Lifesciences is sharpening its medtech model that puts the patient at the centre of the global ecosystem.

For Pat Williams, VP & Country Manager ANZ, Korea, and Interim APAC Surgical Business Director at Edwards Lifesciences, that connection extends well beyond the supply chain. It is a reminder that behind every medical device, manufacturing process and clinical decision is a person whose life can be transformed by the technology.

This is precisely why Edwards brings patients inside its manufacturing facilities, offering an unusually intimate view of the people and processes behind its life-saving heart valves.

“These are such moving events,” reflected Williams. “The patients meet the sewers of the valves, and the employees sitting on a production line working long hours get to see the real impact on a patient and their family.”

That patient journey begins in an unexpected place. The tissue used to construct the leaflets of Edwards’ heart valves is sourced from cattle raised in Queensland. Around 65% of the bovine tissue used in the company’s global tissue-valve supply is sourced from Australia before being transported to manufacturing facilities in Singapore and the US where it undergoes further processing and is hand-sewn into heart valves. The finished valves are ultimately used by patients in more than 100 countries worldwide.

For Williams, the Australian contribution to that global supply chain is “incredible”. Yet the more pressing challenge lies further upstream, in ensuring patients with severe aortic stenosis, the most common form of heart valve disease, are identified and connected to the intervention early enough.

“Only 10% of Australia patients with severe aortic stenosis get to surgery,” he stressed. “It’s not like going through cancer treatment. These patients get cured by the new valve going into their body, and they usually see out their life on one or two valves.”

The challenge is particularly acute across regional and rural Australia, home to around a third of the population, where access to primary care and hospital services are limited.

The experience of Geoff Lewis, a 75-year-old patient from Batemans Bay, illustrates these barriers. He faced significant barriers to care before receiving an Edwards valve that ultimately saved his life.

“Batemans Bay’s two GP clinics do not bulk bill and have closed their books to new patients, and the town’s hospital closed around a year ago,” said Geoff’s daughter, Rebecca Pickles. “For 10 years, dad had gone without a regular GP in his hometown, seeing a doctor only when travelling to Sydney three to four times a year to visit my family and me.”

In response, Edwards is exploring a different pathway to earlier detection through pharmacies. Over the next 12 months, the company plans to invest significantly in a pharmacy-based pilot aimed at giving people experiencing symptoms such as breathlessness a more accessible opportunity to receive an initial heart health check. The initiative marks a deliberate shift in strategy after years of engagement with general practitioners (GPs).

The ambition is to lift diagnosis and intervention well beyond the current 10% rate, with a longer-term target of 30% and the potential to save thousands of lives.

The company’s patient engagement strategy is also expanding, with patient experience increasingly informing how Edwards designs support around its technologies.

One of the clearest examples came from Stuart Slater, a patient who previously spoke at an Edwards event. While grateful that the company’s technology had saved his life, Slater told Edwards that his experience around the procedure had left him feeling like “just a number”.

His feedback prompted the company to look beyond the clinical outcome and examine the experience surrounding the procedure itself. Edwards is now developing a patient-support program that will provide information before and after valve procedures to give patients a clearer understanding of what to expect, how to prepare and what recovery may feel like.

The company is also placing greater emphasis on demonstrating the broader value of novel interventions to health systems, including the benefits of faster recovery, shorter hospital stays and an earlier return to normal life. The issue is particularly pertinent in Australia, where Williams argues that current reimbursement models do not adequately account for measures such as quality of life and time away from work.

“What we’ve done in the past isn’t sticking,” he said, pointing to the lengthy funding process that can delay patient access by around five years. “We’re always playing catch up.”

A more patient-centred approach could reshape how Australia prepares for emerging medical technologies. Rather than waiting for a device to complete clinical development, launch overseas and then enter years of reimbursement negotiations locally, Williams proposes bringing patients who have participated in clinical studies into the policy conversation early, helping policymakers and clinicians and payers understand which innovations are on the horizon.

The proposition places patients across the medtech value chain, not simply as recipients of innovation, but as more active contributors to how novel medical technologies are evaluated, adopted and ultimately delivered through the health system.

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