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First there was the balloon angioplasty, with
its promise of life-saving artery repair without open-heart
surgery. Then, to keep arteries from re-narrowing with scar
tissue built up following angioplasty, the bare-metal stent
was introduced. Now, the most advanced stents (such as Challenge,
developed by Biosensors and sold to Guidant Corp.) release
drugs over time to prevent the body from proliferating tissue
around the stent and re-clogging the vessel.
The key to the effectiveness of these drug-eluting stents
is in the polymers that coat the stent and release the drug
into the system. Since most stents are implanted permanently
in the dynamic environment of a functioning blood vessel, any
drug-eluting polymer used must be highly resistant to flaking
or crumbling, predictable in terms of its solubility and stable
and reliable as a medium for eluting the drug being used.
At the exciting intersection between
next-generation drugs and state-of-the-art medical devices,
Biosensors is applying its unique capabilities to develop
polymer coatings that "follow
doctors' orders" to the letter. |
