Biodegradable stents with drug delivery

• Main Author: Venkatraman, Subbu
• Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
• Format: Research Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Materials::Biomaterials
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/5023
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The objectives of this project, as stated in the proposal, were: (1) To demonstrate the feasibility of delivering two types of drug from a single stent; (2) To fabricate a prototype biodegradable stent with the required compressive strength and in-vitro degradation rate; to demonstrate the actual mode of disappearance of the stent in-vitro. (3) To confirm the viability of a biodegradable stent with drug delivery, in a suitable animal model. (4) To patent new stent technology and eventually license to biotech companies worldwide. We have met all these objectives, except for #3. Within the time frame and budget of this grant, it was not possible to do animal studies. The amount required for the studies was underestimated in the proposal. However, concurrently, using separate funding, we were able to perform animal trials on our biodegradable stents at TTSH. A brief summary of this is given in the Appendix. Discussions are ongoing with companies to license this technology, and/or to partner with NTU on commercializing the concept. To this end, a new company, Acacia Biomedical, has been set up in Singapore by the PI and Prof Freddy Boey.