Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

Skin Patch Could Help Heal, Prevent Diabetic Ulcers

December 23, 2014 By AxoGen, Inc.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine say they have developed a safe and effective skin patch to deliver a drug that enhances the healing of diabetes-related ulcers. The patch, which they tested in mice, may also serve as a way to prevent ulcer formation. 

Among the more than 29 million people in the United States with either type-1 or type-2 diabetes, an estimated 15 percent develop ulcers. The ulcers, sores or open wounds that usually occur on the foot, become a secondary health condition that leads to prolonged disability, high rates of recurrence and increased mortality. Nonhealing wounds related to diabetes are the leading cause of nontraumatic amputations in the country.

What causes these ulcers has been known for several years. In 2009, researchers led by Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, a professor of surgery at Stanford, and a group of scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine published a study pinpointing exactly how diabetes reduces the ability of tissue to form new blood vessels essential for wound healing: High levels of blood sugar compromise the body’s ability to grow the new blood vessels. That same study found a potential treatment: deferoxamine, or DFO, a drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat hemochromatosis, a condition in which too much iron accumulates in the body. DFO can correct the diabetes-impaired expression of a protein that supports new vascular growth.

The problem was how to deliver the DFO, which would be toxic if used for as long as diabetic pressure ulcers can take to heal. So the researchers decided to investigate an alternative: local delivery of just enough medication directly to an ulcer through a patch applied to the skin.

Dominik Duscher, MD, a postdoctoral scholar in surgery, and Evgenios Neofytou, MD, an instructor at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, share lead authorship of a paper describing the findings of the new research. Gurtner is the senior author. The paper will be published online Dec. 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Challenges of developing a patch

Developing the skin patch raised a set of formidable challenges, which the Stanford team took on, step by step, working with materials engineers led by co-author Jayakumar Rajadas, PhD, director of Stanford’s Biomaterials and Advanced Drug Delivery Laboratory.

The DFO needed to be modified to penetrate the outermost layer of the skin to activate the formation of new blood vessels, but its release also needed to be controlled to prolong the availability of the DFO at a therapeutic level. It took nearly four years of attempts before the team produced a solution: Envelope the DFO with a surfactant, which would lower the DFO’s natural surface tension and transform its molecules into microparticles that could penetrate the skin, then embed them in a pliable polymer matrix, a couple of millimeters thick, that would protect the fragile DFO microparticles and disperse them gradually as the matrix disintegrated.

“The mice tolerated it very well,” Duscher said, which could bode well for humans. Once the patch is applied — the moisture in skin makes a natural adherent — the diffusion of the DFO begins and its molecules are drawn into the wounded tissue and skin.

‘Hope to start clinical trials soon’

Not only did the wounds in the mice heal more quickly, Duscher said, but the quality of the new skin was even better than the original. The researchers also used the DFO matrix on a mouse with diabetes to see if it would prevent ulcer formation — and it did. “We were very excited by the results,” Duscher said, “and we hope to start clinical trials soon to test this in humans.”

“This same technology is also effective in preventing pressure ulcers, which are a major source of morbidity and mortality in patients with neurologic injury or the elderly,” said Gurtner, who is also the Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor in Surgery II. “The actor Christopher Reeve actually died from a pressure ulcer and not his spinal cord injury, which really emphasizes the extremely limited therapeutic options for these patients.”

Related Articles Read More >

Avail Medsystems
How Avail Medsystems seeks to create a connected OR experience
Engineer inspecting artificial hip joint parts in quality control department in orthopaedic factory
Deburring and finishing for beautiful, functional medical devices
FDA logo
FDA seeking innovations to move beyond heater-cooler device problems
Logos of Creo Medical and Intuitive
Creo Medical inks collaboration agreement with Intuitive

DeviceTalks Weekly.

June 24, 2022
How innovative design, commercial strategy is building Cala Trio’s bioelectronic medicine market
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech 100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media LLC. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech