I know people who worked on that, I've held one in my hand.
It was not designed with long term implantation in mind.
It was designed to get funding and keep the company alive. The device itself was very crude, not statenof the art at the time, and much of it was hand dip-molded with basic materials. It was a hand made research device that in all reality would have never been expected to be reliable and long lasting.
The Bivacor, Heartmate III, these things are in a different class.
It was developed with long-term implantation in mind. You can read about it here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/...
The use of inductive power transfer meant that no transdermal cabling was needed.
Sadly, it sounds like for various reasons the dream was not achievable at the time.