Globe says World Heart will delay human testing                            
                                                                           
World Heart Corp                                                        WHT
Shares issued 14,078,743                                Jul 22 close $14.25
Fri 23 Jul 99                                                   In the News
The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition  that  World  Heart  Corp.
said  yesterday that human testing of its artificial heart will skip a beat
because of a faulty battery. Ottawa-based World Heart said the battery cell
it  has  been  using as an emergency-power device overheated and broke last
Friday during testing. The company said it will work on  the  problem  with
its U.S. battery supplier over the next three to five weeks and decide then
if it needs to switch to a different battery.  The  blip  will  push  World
Heart's  scheduled  preclinical  human  trials to the first three months of
2000. The company had hoped to  begin  trials  in  late  December.  Company
officials say they are not particularly concerned about the battery problem
because there are other batteries  that  have  been  used  successfully  in
artificial-heart  research,  and  the  battery  is only used as a backup in
their device. World Heart still expects its  service  to  be  available  in
Canada  at  the end of 2000 and in the United States about a year later. It
is expected to cost no more than $65,000 (U.S.). One  health  care  analyst
said:  "A  matter of months isn't going to substantially alter the value of
the company."
(c) Copyright 1999 Canjex Publishing Ltd. canada-stockwatch.com