Pre-clinical Evaluation of a Novel Biodegradable Coronary Stent Prototype

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The first three generations of cardiovascular permanent bare metal stent (BMS) and drugeluting stent (DES) technology have developed significantly over the last twenty years withadvances in stent material, design and drug elution aimed at improving stent deliverability,safety and long term efficacy. However, the clinical performance of these permanent metallicimplants is not considered ideal as they can induce either re-narrowing (restenosis) in the caseof BMS or late clotting (thrombosis) in the case of DES to diseased coronary arteries. Thenext generation of stents will be biodegradable thereby offering additional options toovercome the limitations of permanent stents for the treatment of occlusive coronary arterydisease. The ideal biodegradable stent material is fully biodegradable, vascular compatible,high radial strength, and visible using standard X-Ray and MRI methodology. These stentsallow arteries to heal and then they slowly disappear. The high cost and the clinical limitationsof the currently available biodegradable stent are restricting its adoption into clinical practice.Arterius is the only UK-based SME developing the next generation of novel biodegradablecardiovascular stents to address these limitations with aim of significantly improvingoutcomes for more patients. Arterius now wishes to use newly-developed optimised stentproduction techniques to conduct pre-clinical evaluations of this novel prototype device.Development funding support from TSB under the SMART Scheme will significantly helpthe company to be ahead of the competition and to continue the current collaborate with thethree universities in the UK (namely Bradford, Southampton and Sheffield) to develop thisexciting project further and to commence clinical trials by 2015.