The Straits Times, 25 Jan 2005
S'pore stent: Fewer reclogged arteries
Drug-coated device proves more effective than bare metal ones in Germany Trials

By: Shefali Srinivas

A SINGAPORE-MADE device which helps prevent repeat artery blockages in heart disease patients could soon gain a foothold in a global market estimated to be worth US$6 billion (S$9.8 billion).

Called a drug-coasted stent, the device has proven to be more effective than existing therapies, according to results of clinical trials unveiled yesterday at Singapore Live 2005, an annual cardiology convention organised by the National Heart Centre (NHC).

Heart disease is the No 2 killer in Singapore, accounting for almost one in every five deaths.

Each year, about 2,000 angioplasty and stent procedures are performed to open patients' clogged coronary arteries. During angioplasty, a balloon attached to the end of a tube is snaked up the blocked artery and inflated to dispel the blockage. A stent is then inserted to keep the arteries open.

For now, doctors usually use a stent made of bare metal. However, the effect of such a stent is temporary and in a significant number of patients, the arteries become clogged again within a year.

The new generation drug-coated stents may greatly reduce the incidence of this re-blockage. According to the findings of a six month trial on 120 patients in Germany, the new Biomatrix drug-coated stent has a low re-blockage rate of 3.9 per cent, about half the rate of the bare-metal versions.

Local company Biosensors International, which developed both the stent and the drug that coats it, hopes to make it commercially available by the end of this year.

Though the company will be up against global giants like Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson, both of which also make drug-coated stents, Biosensors' chief executive officer Lu Yoh Chie said it can still compete.

"We are the first Asian company to develop all the components of a drug-eluting stent system in-house," said Mr Lu. "We are competing with companies which spend 10 times the amount we do on research and development."

Also at the convention, doctors and researchers from the NHC announced they had patented a process that may be able to extend the life of heart failure patients awaiting transplants. They have discovered a way to programme adult bone marrow stem cells to grow into cells that could be used to repair damaged hearts.

Dr Philip Wong, a consultant cardiologist at NHC, said the process was part of a large, multi-disciplinary project to create "sheets" of functioning heart tissue that can be grafted onto damaged parts of the heart. This technology may be ready for human clinical trials in about five years.

There are about 500 new cases of heart failure here each year. These patients can survive only with a heart transplant. But due to an acute organ shortage, only 28 heart transplants have been performed in the last 10 years.