Cardiac Stents

Characterising cardiac stent coating thickness, structural integrity, and quality

Cardiac stents, especially drug-eluting fully biodegradable stents, offer patients a quick, effective, and non-invasive method of treating coronary heart disease.  Product innovation within stent research and development and manufacturing is strong, with a range of bio-engineered coatings, materials, and designs under development all with the aim of improving product reliability and efficacy, and promoting post-operative recovery.

However constant innovation and pressure to develop the next generation of stents brings with it a suite of manufacturing and conformance challenges, many of which are not easily addressed using existing technologies.  Fundamentals such as degradation of physical integrity over time, blood flow optimisation, drug distribution, flexibility, influence of heat, cold and humidity, restenosis rate, in-patient performance and ease of manufacture all have to be addressed individually and concurrently to create novel products that will be attractive to the market.

Customers for whom the above factors are potential sources of competitive advantage will find n-eos’ technology and products ideally suited to supporting all aspects of the research and development and manufacturing process, as well as helping meet regulatory standards.

 Advantages of Our Technology

n-eos’ offers those involved in the research and development, manufacture, or regulatory approval of all forms of cardiac stents with a ground breaking new technique that offers a host of significant and measurable benefits.  Affordable, real time and repeatable characterisation of any stent sample can now be conducted quickly and reliably, directly influencing ease of manufacture, in-patient performance, and product quality.

n-eos’ n-Gauge systems offer users the ability to:

Acquire detailed information about a coating and assess the impact on device performance
Reduce the amount of coating required, thus reducing product costs
Enhance product quality through demonstrable coating distribution analysis
Reduce medical device development timescale process and enhance product outcomes
Characterise data on a curved surface in a non-destructive way and in real time
Determine the amount, distribution, density, depth, polymer stress and refractive index of coatings on flat or curved surfaces
Understand the degree of crystallinity of a polymer or coating and hence the likelihood of failure
Undertake non-destructive testing & provide high throughput manufacturing measurement information
Provide focused pointed data enabling multiple parameters to be analysed
Manipulate samples easily and quickly thus saving time and resource