High blood pressure is a significant health problem worldwide, especially for older people. Medication successfully controls the problem for many, but there is also a cohort who are resistant to drug interventions. One of the ways of treating this resistance is with renal denervation. This involves destroying the nerves within the wall of the renal artery by burning through the artery wall. The potential downside of this broad-brush approach is long-term damage to the inner surface of the artery.
A new technology developed by a team at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and NUI Galway has the potential to leapfrog this therapy with a more effective and cheaper alternative. Crescent System uses a catheter with a micro needle attached to inject drugs directly and safely through blood vessel walls into deep tissue. This causes minimal damage to the vessel wall and reduces the risk of later stage complications. It is also less painful for the patient.
"Delivering drugs through the blood vessel wall into the perivascular space allows for direct, highly controllable and concentrated treatment," says TCD research fellow Garrett Ryan who has worked on developing the technology with Prof Bruce Murphy of the department of mechanical and manufacturing engineering at TCD and Dr Faisal Sharif, interventional cardiologist at University Hospital Galway. "It also helps minimise toxicity while avoiding 'washing away' the drugs into the bloodstream. This can reduce side effects, increase therapeutic effectiveness and potentially decrease the cost of medical treatment while improving a patient's quality of life."
Ryan is a graduate of NUI Galway with a PhD in biomedical engineering who has worked in medical device manufacturing in Ireland and Australia. He came home in 2012 to lead the Crescent System project which has been supported by a commercialisation grant of €300,000 from Enterprise Ireland. Following successful trials of the product, Ryan is looking to raise €1.5 million to license the technology from Trinity College and establish a company to bring the product to market by the end of 2015. The product will be made in Ireland and its initial target market is Europe.
“The Crescent System has a number of competitive advantages over other vascular infusion and injection catheters which we think will catch people’s attention,” Ryan says.
“These include control, efficiency, safety, consistency and using minute amounts of contrast medium to give immediate feedback that the drug is hitting its target. We also use a one-size- fits-all catheter which reduces hospital inventory and costs.”
Ryan says the Crescent System has numerous other applications as it can be used pretty much anywhere in the body. For example, it could also be used to deliver cancer drugs or antibiotics and for stem cell transplantation and gene therapies.
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