Kardium attracts $31M investment from government

VANCOUVER – The Government of Canada announced funding of up to $31.25 million through the Strategic Response Fund (SRF) toward Kardium’s investment in a $125 million project to expand its manufacturing capabilities in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The investment will support a major expansion of Kardium’s cleanroom facility in Vancouver. The new facility will provide the infrastructure needed to support the company’s growth, enabling Kardium to scale up manufacturing of its Globe System while retaining critical intellectual property, expertise, and high-value jobs in Canada.

The Globe System received regulatory approval from Health Canada in July 2026 and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in August 2025.

“British Columbia is emerging as a global hub for medical innovation, home to companies like Kardium that are developing new technologies with the potential to improve lives around the world,” said Mélanie Joly, Canada’s minister of industry. “By supporting Kardium’s expansion, the government of Canada is strengthening Canada’s advanced manufacturing capacity, creating high-value jobs, and ensuring British Columbia remains at the forefront of innovation in the medical sector.”

“Kardium is proud to be developing and manufacturing our innovative medical technology here in British Columbia,” said Kevin Chaplin (pictured), CEO of Kardium. “The government of Canada’s funding is an important step in our continued growth and will help us expand our manufacturing capabilities as we bring our technology to more physicians and patients around the world.”

The Globe and Mail reported that Kardium makes a catheter that is threaded up a patient’s femoral vein into the heart and expanded into a disco-ball-like globe just three centimetres in diameter. It pinpoints where erratic electrical signals in the heart originate and zaps the problem cells. The device has generated better clinical results than its rivals.

The privately held 19-year-old company, which plans to go public as early as the second half of 2027, struggled to raise money in Canada for its distinctive heart technology.

But it had little trouble finding foreign-based financiers, including Fidelity, T. Rowe Price Associates and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, which have invested nearly $500-million in the company.

“We’re building Kardium to be an independent company and in order to do that we want to have control of our own destiny. That means controlling our own manufacturing,” chief executive officer Kevin Chaplin said.

The company’s manufacturing process requires each device to be assembled in clean rooms, which are kept free of dust, germs and polluted air, and which are each equipped with their own heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system.

The company currently has 10,000 square feet of clean-room space; with the investment, that will increase to 25,000.

Kardium now has more than 700 employees and has added 200 this year for manufacturing, Mr. Chaplin said.

The facility in Burnaby is one of two that Kardium will use to manufacture its devices as it expands globally. The company plans to open another facility in Costa Rica, a major centre for medical-device manufacturing, by 2029. That facility will ultimately supply a majority of its devices globally.