This week, French surgeons implanted a Carmat artificial heart in a human patient for the very first time. The device, which combines mechanical components and heart tissue derived from cows, is the first artificial heart designed for long-term use up to five years.

France’s Carmat said on Friday it had carried out its first implant of an artificial heart that can beat for up to five years, adding that the operation had gone smoothly. The implant operation was performed on Wednesday at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris, the biomedical firm said in a statement. It said that the male patient was awake and talking and he was being monitored in the intensive care unit.