HeartMate VAD. This acquisition gave Thoratec dominance in the artificial heart market, and the company also shortened its name from Thoratec Laboratories Corporation to Thoratec Corporation. HeartMate and other product lines With the 2001 Thermo Cardiosystems merger, Thoratec acquired the HeartMate Left Ventricular Assist System, an implanted VAD for end-stage heart patients. A landmark three-year study of 129 patients at 22 major medical centers, called REMATCH (Randomized Evaluation of Mechanical Assistance for the Treatment of Congestive Heart Failure) and published in November 2001, found that the HeartMate VE (vented electric) more than doubled the likelihood that terminally ill heart-failure patients would be alive at the end of one year, and it increased the likelihood of survival for two years to 22.9% vs. 8.1% for patients who were treated with only medication. By November 2002, the FDA approved the HeartMate VE both for patients awaiting a heart transplant (bridge to transplantation), and for patients too ill to be eligible for a heart transplant (destination therapy). Thoratec was the first company to gain approval of a VAD for permanent use in patients too ill for a heart transplant. The company introduced an enhanced version of the device, the HeartMate XVE, and it was FDA approved for destination therapy in May 2003, having previously been approved for bridge to transplantation. In June 2003 the HeartMate XVE received CE Mark approval allowing for its commercial sale in Europe, and in June 2004 it was approved in Canada. The company's biventricular VAD, the paracorporeal (external) Thoratec PVAD, had been developed and approved in the 1990s for hospital use in the U.S. In December 2003, the FDA approved the TLC-II portable driver – the unit providing power, monitoring, and operational control for these VADs – for home discharge, making it the first biventricular support device approved for home discharge. This enabled patients to return home with the system to await heart transplantation or for their native heart to recover. HeartMate II and later products Thoratec next developed a second-generation LVAD product line, a continuous-flow VAD called HeartMate II. The new device, one-fifth the size of the HeartMate XVE, was designed to last more than twice as long as the XVE, providing mechanical circulatory support for three to five years or more before replacement. HeartMate II was CE Mark authorized for bridge to transplantation and for destination therapy in Europe in November 2005. It received FDA approval