German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to Fund the CytoSorb® Endocarditis REMOVE Trial

MONMOUTH JUNCTION, N.J., Dec. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CytoSorbents Corporation (NASDAQ: CTSO), a critical care immunotherapy leader using CytoSorb® blood purification to treat deadly inflammation in critically-ill and cardiac surgery patients around the world, announced that the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research will fund the largest randomized controlled trial using CytoSorb in infective endocarditis patients to date. The REMOVE Trial ("REvealing Mechanisms and Investigating Efficacy Of Hemoadsorption for Prevention of Vasodilatory Shock in Cardiac Surgery Patients With Infective Endocarditis") is a 250 patient randomized controlled, multi-center clinical trial in Germany designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of intraoperative CytoSorb use during valve replacement surgery and cardiopulmonary bypass in patients with a dangerous bacterial heart valve infection.  The study is expected to begin in early 2018.  Trial collaborators include CytoSorbents, B.R.A.H.M.S. (a division of Thermo Fisher Scientific), and the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology.  

Dr. Phillip Chan, Chief Executive Officer of CytoSorbents, commented, "We are very grateful to the German government for their commitment to fund the REMOVE trial in its entirety, and to Prof. Dr. med. Frank Brunkhorst, the Center for Clinical Studies Jena, and Jena University Hospital for sponsoring the study.  Infective endocarditis, or infection of a heart valve, can destroy the valve in hours to days, and can rapidly lead to emergency open heart valve replacement surgery in very sick patients that suffer from both sepsis and heart failure.  Patients are often unstable before, during, and after the surgery, and are prone to a high risk of complications and death, as well as a costly and lengthy hospital stay.  This is a rapidly growing problem, driven by the aging population and the opioid crisis, where the use of dirty needles by intravenous drug abusers can lead to seeding of bacteria in the bloodstream and heart valve infection."

Dr. Chan continued, "This announcement of funding and collaboration follows our previous press release on October 19, 2017 highlighting the largest published endocarditis case series to date, where the intraoperative use of CytoSorb during emergent and urgent valve replacement surgery helped to improve hemodynamic stability, reduce the need for vasopressors, and was associated with a reduction of in-hospital mortality compared to a historical control.  We believe that similar results could be seen in the REMOVE trial.  Interestingly, the REMOVE study will parallel our REFRESH 2 pivotal, registration trial in the U.S., designed to support FDA regulatory approval.  The REFRESH 2 trial will also focus on the intraoperative use of CytoSorb during valve replacement surgery - but specifically excludes infective endocarditis – to reduce the incidence or severity of post-operative organ dysfunction. If successful, the two trials could rapidly lead to the use of CytoSorb as standard of care in most, if not all, open heart valve replacement surgeries, which accounts for hundreds of thousands of procedures worldwide." 

The REMOVE trial will enroll patients aged 18-80 years with documented infective endocarditis (according to DUKE criteria), with a EuroSCORE II (European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation II) ≥ 4, and who require open heart surgery.  The goal of the study is to demonstrate improved hemodynamic stability and reduced organ injury as primarily measured by the change in the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) Score with secondary endpoints measuring 30-day mortality, the need for supportive care therapies such as vasopressors, mechanical ventilation, and dialysis, incidence of stroke, and the length of intensive care unit and in-hospital stay. 

About CytoSorbents Corporation (NASDAQ: CTSO)

CytoSorbents Corporation is a leader in critical care immunotherapy, specializing in blood purification. Its flagship product, CytoSorb® is approved in the European Union with distribution in 44 countries around the world, as a safe and effective extracorporeal cytokine adsorber, designed to reduce the "cytokine storm" or "cytokine release syndrome" that could otherwise cause massive inflammation, organ failure and death in common critical illnesses such as sepsis, burn injury, trauma, lung injury and pancreatitis, as well as in cancer immunotherapy. These are conditions where the risk of death is extremely high, yet no effective treatments exist. CytoSorb® is also being used during and after cardiac surgery to remove inflammatory mediators, such as cytokines and free hemoglobin, which can lead to post-operative complications, including multiple organ failure. CytoSorbents has completed its REFRESH (REduction in FREe Hemoglobin) 1 trial – a multi-center, randomized controlled study that has demonstrated the safety and efficacy of free hemoglobin reduction with intra-operative CytoSorb® use in a heart-lung machine during complex cardiac surgery.  In 2017, the company plans to initiate a pivotal REFRESH 2 trial intended to support U.S. FDA approval.  CytoSorb® has been used safely in more than 31,000 human treatments to date.

CytoSorbents' purification technologies are based on biocompatible, highly porous polymer beads that can actively remove toxic substances from blood and other bodily fluids by pore capture and surface adsorption. Its technologies have received non-dilutive grant, contract, and other funding of approximately $21 million from DARPA, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and others. The Company has numerous products under development based upon this unique blood purification technology, protected by 32 issued U.S. patents and multiple applications pending, including CytoSorb-XL™, HemoDefend™, VetResQ™, K⁺ontrol™, ContrastSorb, DrugSorb, and others.  For more information, please visit the Company's websites at www.cytosorbents.com and www.cytosorb.com or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives, representations and contentions and are not historical facts and typically are identified by use of terms such as "may," "should," "could," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," "continue" and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. You should be aware that the forward-looking statements in this press release represent management's current judgment and expectations, but our actual results, events and performance could differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors which could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the risks discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, filed with the SEC on March 3, 2017, as updated by the risks reported in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and in the press releases and other communications to shareholders issued by us from time to time which attempt to advise interested parties of the risks and factors which may affect our business. We caution you not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, other than as required under the Federal securities laws. 

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SOURCE CytoSorbents Corporation