Profile in Courage: Robert Jarvik, M.D.

Today is World Intellectual Property (IP) Day, a time to celebrate the storied achievements of innovators and entrepreneurs across the globe. from Laffy Taffy to weatherproof Halloween costumes to movies to lifesaving drugs. IP can take on many memorable forms. But, few inventions have been as game-changing as the artificial heart. Without the determination of researcher Robert Jarvik (and his team at the University of Utah), millions of patients needing heart transplants would have little prospect of recovery. Thanks to Jarvik’s brainchild, heart recipients can live healthy and fruitful lives post-implant and spend quality time with their loved ones. America’s IP system rewards innovators such as Jarvik and ensures that patients will continue to benefit from quality care. Robert Jarvik is a Profile in Courage, and it’s critical that future Profiles in Courage benefit from continued IP protection.

From an early age, Robert Jarvik harnessed innovation to help patients. As a teenage orderly at Stamford Hospital, Jarvik invented an automatic surgical stapler to simplify the clamping and tying of blood vessels during operations. The patented Jarvik Suture Machine would prove pivotal for nurses struggling with sutures and reduce unnecessary surgical complications. A family tragedy prompted him to think even bigger. Jarvik’s father suffered from a heart disease-related condition called an aortic aneurysm and needed open heart surgery. Unfortunately, he died soon after his surgery. Jarvik recounts, “I knew that my father was going to die of heart disease, and I was trying to make a heart for him. I was too late.” While he could not save his father, Jarvik knew that advances in artificial heart technology could change the lives of millions of patients with similar, deadly diseases. Jarvik earned his medical degree from the University of Utah College of Medicine in 1976 but declined the usual path of internship and residency to work full time on his burgeoning artificial heart idea. He teamed up with Dutch-born physician Willem Kolff, who had already been testing artificial heart prototypes in animals for years in hopes of finding a sustainable design for humans.

After five years of tireless work at the University of Utah, Jarvik and Kolff were confident enough in their prototype design (made of dacron polyester, plastic, and aluminum) to try and implant an artificial heart into a human patient. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed in 1981, but the notoriously risk-adverse agency set such strict criteria on eligibility that it took more than a year before the artificial organs team could find their match. As Syracuse University Magazine writer Renee Gearhart Levy notes, the team finally found their patient in 1982. She writes, “On December 2, 1982, a retired dentist suffering from cardiomyopathy-degenerative and irreversible heart disease-made history by receiving the first permanent artificial heart. Dr. William DeVries of the University of Utah performed the seven-and-a-half hour surgery; Jarvik assisted. With Ravel’s Bolero playing in the background, Barney Clark was given a second chance at life.” Clark lived for 112 days with his artificial heart, a remarkable achievement that Jarvik and his team have managed to improve on. Patients can now survive years with an implanted artificial heart, and transplant innovation continues at a breathtaking pace. 

And, thanks to his ability to profit off his life-saving inventions, Jarvik and his team barely needed any taxpayer money for research. Writing in 1989, Levy noted, “Opponents of the artificial heart frequently cite the $240 million drained out of the NIH [National Institutes of Health] in the last 24 years for artificial heart research. But less than $10 million of those funds were used on development of the Jarvik-7, the majority supporting heart-assist devices, bioinstrumentation, and biomaterials. No federal monies have assisted any of the Jarvik-7 patients, permanent or bridge.” According to Jarvik, the problem with NIH funding is that, “they have pretty much dictated the things that people had to do in order to get funding…Some of the more creative and better ideas could not even be submitted under the contract programs.” In other words, IP protections are a far more dynamic, reliable way of ensuring innovation than relying on taxpayer dollars.

Policymakers should learn from Jarvik’s example and make sure that creators are rewarded for their successes without taking others’ hard-earned dollars. Robert Jarvik is a Profile in Courage, and just one of many innovators who have bettered our lives.