On December 4, 2025, the Mussallem CHD Alliance convened 35 leading innovators from across the congenital heart defect (CHD) ecosystem—including clinicians, entrepreneurs, investors, and philanthropic partners—for a discussion focused on a shared question: how can we help bring more CHD innovations to patients, faster and more reliably?
The roundtable was marked by exceptional energy, open exchange, and a deep commitment to collaboration, with ideas flowing throughout the day and into the evening. This convening reflected MCA’s belief that progress in CHD innovation depends on bringing a variety of perspectives together around a common goal: helping people born with CHD survive and thrive.
Participants engaged in an in-depth, candid dialogue on the systemic challenges that slow the translation of promising CHD innovations into clinical practice. Key barriers identified included persistent capital gaps across development stages, limited access to specialized commercialization talent, difficulty scaling pediatric-focused technologies, and insufficient awareness and advocacy for CHD as a lifelong condition rather than a one-time surgical fix.
The discussion also highlighted a wide range of potential solutions to address these challenges. These included hybrid philanthropic-commercial funding models, shared infrastructure for evidence generation, new approaches to regulatory and reimbursement predictability, and stronger coordination among patient families, clinicians, and policymakers to elevate CHD innovation as a priority.
This convening represents a step in shaping a more coordinated and sustainable pathway for CHD innovation. Insights from this discussion will serve to inform the Mussallem CHD Alliance’s evolving strategy and guide future initiatives aimed at ensuring that high-impact innovations can reach patients faster and more reliably.