Why this Houston medical device innovator is pumped up for the first total artificial heart

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 248

Dr. William Cohn is the chief medical officer for BiVACOR, a medical device company creating the first total artificial heart. Photo via TMC

It's hard to understate the impact Dr. William Cohn has had on cardiovascular health as a surgeon at the Texas Heart Institute or on health care innovation as the director of the Center for Device Innovation at the Texas Medical Center. However, his role as chief medical officer of BiVACOR might be his most significant contribution to health care yet.

The company's Total Artificial Heart is unlike any cardiovascular device that's existed, Cohn explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast. While most devices are used temporarily for patients awaiting a heart transplant, BiVACOR's TAH has the potential to be a permanent solution for the 200,000 patients who die of heart failure annually. Last year, only around 4,000 patients were able to receive heart transplants.

"Artificial hearts historically have had bladders that ejected and filled 144,000 times a day. They work great for temporary support, but no one is suggesting they are permanent devices," Cohn says on the show.

The difference with BiVACOR's device is it abandons the bladder approach. Cohn explains that as assist pumps evolved — something his colleague, Dr. Bud Frasier, had a huge impact on — they featured new turbine and rotor technology. Daniel Timms, BiVACOR's founder and CTO, iterated on this technology beginning when he was a postdoctoral student at Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

"BiVACOR is the first artificial heart that leverages what we learned from that whole period — it has no bladders, it has no valves. It has one moving part, and that moving part is suspended in an electromagnetic field controlled by a computer and changed thousands of times a second," Cohn says. "It will never wear out, and that's why we think it's the world's first total artificial heart."

The company is seeing momentum, celebrating its first successful human implantation last month. The device was used for eight days on a patient at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center before the patient received a heart transplant.

Cohn says that BiVACOR has plans to use the TAH as "bridge-to-transplant" device in several other surgeries and expects to get FDA approval for that purpose in the next three to four years before working toward clearance for total artificial heart transplants.

Cohn has worked to support medical device startups at CDI at TMC for the seven years it has existed — first under Johnson and Johnson and then under TMC when it took the program over. He describes the center and its location as the ideal place for developing the future of health care, with Houston rising up to compete with regions known for medical device success — both coasts and Minnesota.

"Being in the shadow of the largest medical center on the planet — 106,000 employees show up there every 24 hours," Cohn says, "if you want to innovate, this is the place to do it."

From Your Site Articles

A new innovation out of the Texas Medical Center's Biodesign Program is enhancing efficacy of a life-saving aortic aneurysm rupture procedure. Photo via Getty Images

Houston biodesign innovators ready to spin out startup with life-saving vascular tech

heartbreak healers

Yes, you can die of a broken heart — although it's not in the hyperbolic way you might be thinking. Fewer than 20 percent of people who have an aortic aneurysm rupture survive the event. But aortic aneurysms can be treated if they’re caught before they burst. A new Houston company is devoted to a novel solution to helping patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA).

That company is Taurus Vascular. As part of the current class of the TMC Innovation Biodesign Program, fellows Matthew Kuhn and Melanie Lowther were tasked with creating a biomedical company in a year. The founders started their journey last August. At the end of this month, they'll be kicked out of the nest, Kuhn tells InnovationMap. Taurus is also in Rice University's 2023 cohort of OwlSpark, an ongoing summer program for startups founders from the Rice community.

Kuhn is a biomedical engineer who just scored his forty-fifth patent. The CEO says that he hit it off quickly with his co-founder and COO, Lowther, former director entrepreneurship and innovation at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Matthew Kuhn and Melanie Lowther co-founded Taurus Vascular as TMC Biodesign fellows. Photos via taurusvascular.com

Members of the Biodesign Program are paid a livable stipend to devote themselves fully to creating a pioneering company. Kuhn says that he became interested in finding a more effective way to heal AAAs during his four and a half years as a project leader at the Center for Device Innovation at the Texas Medical Center.

“It was ripe for innovation and we landed on a concept of some merit,” he says.

The current standard of care for AAAs is EVAR, or endovascular aneurysm repair, in which a surgeon inserts a stent to relieve pressure on the aneurysm.

“It used to be if you had a AAA, you had a gnarly procedure,” he says, which included a large incision across the abdomen. EVAR eliminated that, but its problem is that it often results in endoleaks. As many as 20 percent of patients need another EVAR within five years.

Taurus Vascular’s technology improves on EVAR by placing a self-deploying stent to create a drainage pathway between the high-pressure aneurysm sac and a low-pressure nearby vein — mitigating the adverse impact of endoleaks that would otherwise cause the aneurysm to continue to grow. The simple solution will allow patients to live longer, healthier lives after their procedure.

Kuhn says that being in Houston has been and will continue to be instrumental in his company’s success. Part of that, of course, is his relatively cosseted status as a founder in the Innovation Biodesign Program. But he says that the industry as a whole has become almost like a family.

“It feels very different from startup life for other industries where it feels competitive,” he explains. "You have to be a little crazy to start a medical device company and there’s a sense that we’re all in the same boat. People are so generous with their time to share resources. I feels like I have 100 co-founders."

Following the end of Taurus Vascular’s time in the program that helped conceived it, its founders will remain in the same building, continuing to work to support their technology. The next step is raising a seed round that will pay for the company’s chronic animal studies. Because Taurus Vascular is producing a Class III medical device, its approval process to get to market is the most stringent the FDA has.

The goal is to be commercial by 2030, says Kuhn. By then, Taurus Vascular will have healed many a heart.

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

UH scores $18M NIH grant for chronic disease research

research funding

The University of Houston has received a coveted $18.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to launch a program to address the root causes of chronic disease.

Only 22 institutions nationwide receive this NIH award, and the 5-year process aligns with the newly established UH Health’s mission to expand healthcare innovations in Texas and beyond. The initiative will be housed in the UH Population Health department.

"This generous funding allows us to directly confront the root causes of chronic illness that place a heavy burden on so many families," Dr. Jonathan McCullers, vice president for health affairs at UH, said in a news release. "With the recent launch of UH Health, we have an unprecedented opportunity to translate scientific discovery into healthier outcomes for our communities by bringing together experts from across the university to improve health where it matters most.”

Through the program, UH researchers from different areas of expertise will work together to address the challenges of chronic illness by looking at biological, social and behavioral factors.

According to the university, chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, strokes and others are the leading cause of illness, disability and death in the U.S. They account for 90 percent of the nation’s $5.3 trillion in annual healthcare spending.

Bettina Beech, chief of population health and translational science at UH, serves as principal investigator for the program.

“Chronic disease management largely happens during the 8,700 hours each year that people are not visiting their healthcare provider,” Beech added in the news release. “While healthcare is indispensable, it only accounts for 20 percent of how health is created — genetics accounts for another 10 percent, and the other 70 percent is determined by behavior, social conditions and environment.”

With the funds from the grant, UH will also be able to expand research infrastructure, add to community partnerships, support complementary research, and invest in early-career investigators, according to the news release. UH also aims to develop solutions that could help ease the economic burden of chronic disease.

Report: Where Texas ranks among best and worst states to live in 2026

Texas Talk

After earning its worst-ever ranking last year, Texas has improved slightly on an evaluation of the best states to live, but it's still at the bottom of the pack.

Each year, WalletHub's analysts compare all 50 states using 51 livability metrics to measure their affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life, and safety. Factors that were weighed include the cost of living, homeownership rates, population and income growth rates, wealth gaps, public school system quality, road quality, crime rates, and many others.

The Lone Star State landed at No. 36 in 2026, making it the 15th worth state to live right now. That's on par with its 2024 ranking, and it's a two-spot improvement over its 2025 performance.

While Texas residents can brag about living in a state with the No. 1 highest number of restaurants per capita and the 7th best quality of life in the country, that's about it. Texas earned middling-to-poor scores among the four remaining livability rankings: safety (No. 33), affordability (No. 35), economy (No. 37), and education and health (No. 40).

Here's how Texas fared in other nationwide rankings in the study:

No. 27 – Income Growth
No. 30 – Housing Costs
No. 39 – Percentage of Population in Poverty
No. 42 – Percentage of Adults in Fair or Poor Health
No. 46 – Homeownership Rate
No. 49 – Percentage of Population Aged 25 and Older with a High School Diploma or Higher
No. 48 – Average Weekly Work Hours
No. 50 – Percentage of Insured Population

Texas has a lot of work to do to improve its livability for all of its residents, but especially for women, according to several other 2026 WalletHub studies. Texas is the fourth-worst state for women, the ninth-worst state for working mothers, and the seventh-worst place to have a baby based on limited access to maternal and pediatric healthcare.

At the very bottom of the report is New Mexico, ranking 50th overall, with Louisiana (No. 49), Mississippi (No. 48), Alaska (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46) rounding out the bottom five.

After holding on as the No. 1 best state to live for a few years in a row, Massachusetts now ranks No. 4 and was overtaken by Idaho (No. 1), New Jersey (No. 2), and Wisconsin (No. 3). New Hampshire rounds out the top five best states to live.

WalletHub's top 10 best states to live in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Idaho
No. 2 – New Jersey
No. 3 – Wisconsin
No. 4 – Massachusetts
No. 5 – New Hampshire
No. 6 – Wyoming
No. 7 – Utah
No. 8 – Minnesota
No. 9 – Pennsylvania
No. 10 – Florida

---

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

6 exciting Houston startup raises to know from July 2026

fresh funding

Houston startups carried the fundraising momentum of Q1 and Q2 into July with several significant seed funding, Series A and Series B rounds.

From geothermal leaders to medtech innovators, these six Houston companies raised more than a quarter billion dollars last month alone, according to reporting by InnovationMap and our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Did we miss a funding round? Let us know by emailing innoeditor@innovationmap.com.

Altillion

Houston-based startup Altillion has secured $5 million in seed funding to accelerate the commercialization of its proprietary IRIS and ALIX technologies, which convert oilfield-produced water into valuable minerals, the company reported earlier this month.

San Francisco-based EIC Rose Rock and Houston-based Flathead Forge led the round. Altillion says the funding will go toward pilot facilities and commercial deployments as the company looks to scale in the U.S. Continue reading.

Buildforce

The U.S. is grappling with a current shortage of 50,000 electricians, according to the National Electrical Contractors Association. Photo via Unsplash

Houston-based Buildforce, which provides a tech-enabled staff platform geared toward electricians and electrical contractors, closed a $10 million Series A round led by Houston’s Saepio Capital last month.

Other investors in the round include Blue Heron Capital, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, S3 Ventures and Chicago Ventures.

Buildforce says the funding will help fuel its national expansion and further development of its technology.

The startup, founded in 2019, connects electricians with electrical contractors for commercial and industrial construction projects. Continue reading.

Hephae Energy Technology Corp.

The company develops ultra-high-temperature tools to withstand the heat of geothermal reservoirs. Photo via hephaeet.com

Houston-area startup Hephae Energy Technology Corp. closed a $17.8 million Series A financing round last month to commercialize its geothermal technology.

The round was co-led by Pennsylvania-based Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, which invests in early-stage climatech companies, and Copenhagen-based Underground Ventures, which focuses on geothermal energy startups. Alfa8, Baruch Future Ventures, Centaurus Capital LP, Elemental Impact, Exa Ventures, Future Ventures, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, New System Ventures and True North Institute joined the round, along with existing Houston-based investor Nabors Industries. Hephae reports in a news release that the Series A round brings the company's total capital raised to $24.7 million. Continue reading.

TYBR Health

The company's B3 GEL System is designed to protect tendons, ligaments and muscles while they heal from orthopedic surgery. Photo via Unsplash

Houston-based healthtech startup TYBR Health has raised a $30 million Series A round to scale its B3 GEL System, which helps protect tendons from scarring after surgery, the company announced last month.

The round was led by Minneapolis-based Vensana Capital and Cleveland-based Mutual Capital Partners, with participation from Denver-based Neovate Capital Partners and existing investors, according to a news release from the company.

TYBR Health said it plans to use the funding to broaden the B3 GEL System's clinical applications, expand commercialization and conduct studies to evaluate its ability to protect tissue and improve healing outcomes. Continue reading.

Venus Aerospace

Venus Aerospace has secured funding from Mercury Fund, Lockheed Martin Ventures and others. Photo courtesy Venus Aerospace

Houston-based Venus Aerospace closed a $91 million Series B round last month and plans to scale the production of its hypersonic engine.

The round was led by Houston-based Mercury Fund with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, Green Sands Equity and other investors, according to a news release.

The investment comes about a year after Venus completed the first U.S. flight test of its high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE). The engine is expected to enable vehicles to travel four to six times the speed of sound from a conventional runway and is about 15 percent more efficient than traditional alternatives, according to the company. Continue reading.

Quaise Energy

A rendering of a Quaise Energy geothermal plant. Rendering via quaise.com

Houston-based Quaise Energy, a producer of utility-scale geothermal power, closed $134 million in a Series B round last month to advance its “superhot” geothermal power plant.

Climate-focused San Francisco-based investment firm Prelude Ventures led the round, with participation from JERA Co., Japan’s largest power generation company, and Idemitsu Kosan, one of Japan’s largest energy companies. Nearly all existing investors, including cleantech-focused investment firm Safar Partners, participated in the round.

The startup expects more equity and debt deals to close “imminently.” Quaise has raised $230 million since its founding in 2018. Continue reading.

View All Listings

INNOVATIONMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME