Axordia

Improving stent performance

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most serious health concern facing the West:

• in the EU in 2003 two millions deaths were attributed to CVD - at an estimated cost of €24bn;
• in the UK the cost of treatment and care already exceeds £7bn; and
• around 250 million people worldwide suffer from heart disease, the main cause of death in developed countries.

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) continues to expand and more than 2 million procedures are performed per annum, with stent implantation in about 90% of these. However, the major challenge in stenting procedures is the high rate of stent restenosis (covering of the stent in scar tissue which re-blocks the artery) that typically affects 30-50% of all patients.

Drug eluting stents are being increasingly used to reduce restenosis but it is now being recognised that the efficacy is short-lived and late thrombosis can occur. As a result tissue engineering has long been predicted to provide the next generation of cardiovascular disease (CVD) treatment.

Professor Martin Rothman, Professor of Interventional Cardiology and Director of Cardiac Research & Development at St Barts and the London NHS Trust said that “the potential for a regenerative stent is significant. Current drug eluting stent technology reduces restenosis but tends to inhibit normal tissue regeneration and may contribute to late stent thrombosis, with possible serious consequences for the patient. A system that engenders normal healing of the tissues may well reduce these late complications and lead to a reduction in associated health care costs”.

Axordia has formed collaboration with Lombard Medical Technologies PLC and the University of Sheffield to develop a new benchmark in stent technology.

The consortium will develop a surface-modified stent with a ‘bioactive cellular scaffold coat’ that contains Axordia’s endovascular cells. This regenerative stent will then provide localised immunogenicity, preventing restenosis and helping speed up vascular healing.

Axordia’s regenerative stent will be a ground breaking technology as well as providing a first powerful proof of concept for a wide range of local immune applications from Axordia’s patent protected endovascular cell line. The regenerative stent will promote natural healing through cell therapy, reducing or even potentially removing the systemic impact of anti-inflammatory drugs. The company’s unique HESC derived endovascular cell line is non-genetically modified and promotes localised immune-tolerance and vascular repair and has an anti-inflammatory response through secretion of human leucocyte antigen (HLA-G), indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), IL 10 and vascular repair factors. The stent integrates device implantation and cell therapy simultaneously, providing delivery (of the cellular component) and regulation of the host response (to the device), creating a new benchmark in stent technology.