Is anyone following CardioTech (CTE), a company that is designing artificial arteries than can be used in surgery? This company is not followed by many analysts, and has a relatively tiny market cap
($5.3 M)
BTW, ask anyone that's had bypass surgery and they'll tell you that the pain in their thigh (from the incision to harvest a few veins to replaced their occulted heart arteries) oftens hurts more than from the incision in their chest. An artificial artery eliminates additional surgery, plus I assume works better than a real vein which does not do well pretending to be an artery which must endore greater vascular pressure and is proned to additional occusion.
From CTE's recent 10-k:
CardioTech International, Inc. ("CardioTech" or the "Company") synthesizes, designs and manufactures medical-grade polymers, particularly polyurethanes that are useful in the development of vascular graft technology and other implantable medical devices because they can be synthesized to exhibit compatibility with
human blood and tissue. CardioTech uses proprietary manufacturing technology to fabricate small bore synthetic vascular grafts made of ChronoFlex, a family of polyurethanes that has been demonstrated to be biodurable, blood, tissue compatible and non-toxic. CardioTech owns a number of patents relating to its vascular graft manufacturing technology.
Vascular Grafts
Blood is pumped from the heart throughout the body via arteries. Blood is returned to the heart at relatively low pressure via veins, which have thinner walls than arteries and have check valves which force blood to move in one direction. Because a specific area of the body is often supplied by a single main artery, rupture, severe narrowing or occlusion of the artery supplying blood to that area is likely to cause an undesirable or catastrophic medical outcome.
Vascular grafts are used to replace or bypass occluded, damaged, dilated or severely diseased arteries and are sometimes used to provide access to the bloodstream for patients undergoing hemodialysis treatments. However, existing small bore graft technologies suffer a variety of disadvantages in the treatment of certain medical conditions depending upon the need for biodurability, compliance (elasticity) and other characteristics necessary for long-term
interface with the human body.
CardioTech is developing a family of small bore vascular graft devices
using specialized ChronoFlex polyurethane materials that it believes will provide significantly improved performance in the treatment of arterial disorders. CardioTech is focusing its efforts on the development of vascular access grafts, tapered peripheral grafts and coronary artery bypass grafts. The grafts have three layers similar to that of natural arteries designed to replicate the physical characteristics of human blood vessels. |
