A company backed by European aerospace giant EADS and one of France's leading cardiac surgeons aims to create an implantable artificial heart it says could help hundreds of thousands of patients.

Carmat SA, financed by venture capital firm Truffle Capital, France's state innovation agency OSEO, and EADS, said that preliminary animal trials and laboratory tests of the device had produced promising results.

"At present, Carmat's prototype artificial heart has been patented and is undergoing preclinical testing," the company said in a statement.

It said the device was functionally similar to the human heart, automatically regulating the heart rate and blood flow according to the patient's needs.

Following further development, it will be tested on patients whose lives are under threat and who have no other options for treatment before the trials are extended to others with a better outlook.

Alain Carpentier, the French cardiac specialist who developed the artificial heart, is one of the world's leading practitioners of cardiac valve repair and has already created a series of artificial valves used widely in surgery.

"I was struck by the therapeutic gap, and I thought I could make my contribution as I had already succeeded with bioprostheses," he told French daily Le Monde, which said two to three more years of tests may be needed before the first human trials.

Dr Carpentier worked for several years with the late Jean-Luc Lagardere, one of France's leading entrepreneurs, the former head of Matra, an aerospace group since absorbed into EADS. Carmat, which has raised more than €7 million, was spun out of EADS and has secured €33 million in grants-in-aid and loans from OSEO.