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Lowell-based medical device startup VasoTech Inc. wants to improve the safety of stents by making them work better with the patient’s body.
Entrepreneur and inventor Tim Wu officially launched VasoTech last year, hoping to revolutionize the drug-eluting stent market. Currently, the other types of drug-eluting stents, such as the Taxus device made by Natick-based Boston Scientific Corp., are coated in non-biodegradable polymers, he explained. This can cause long-term problems, Wu said, such as thrombosis and in-stent restinosis, or the re-closing of an already-treated coronary artery.
By contrast, Wu said the VasoTech PowerStent device has a cobalt base and is coated in a special inflammatory-free biodegradable polymer called BioDe. The Power-Stent also has a drug-delivery capability and its own drug formula designed to prevent restenosis. Preclinical tests have been positive so far, he said.
Boston Scientific declined to comment.
VasoTech occupies space at the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Wu would like to raise about $3 million to create a clean room for the pilot manufacturing processes there. Then, he hopes to launch a company branch in his native China, where he can more rapidly perform the clinical trials, generate the requisite data, and secure U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval.
Wu has already worked at other regional biotech companies and institutions, including M2D2 and Harvard Medical School.
This sort of stent “is definitely the future,” said M2D2 co-director Stephen McCarthy, who is also a UMass Lowell professor of plastics and engineering. “It’s the next generation for stents.” The large stent manufacturers, including Boston Scientific, will most likely take an interest in VasoTech, said McCarthy.
This June, VasoTech secured a $1.2 million three-year fast track National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant. Wu is applying for another $1.5 million SBIR grant this month, and a third in April 2009. Originally, applying was a challenge because English isn’t Wu’s native language. “I’ve done well learning to write proposals,” he said.
Ultimately, Wu wants to create a fully biodegradable stent, but this is only a concept at this point. “My current stent can only solve the patient compatibility issue,” he said. “We are planning to develop fully biodegradable stents with the next phase.”
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