Project

(1) Development of drug eluting coronary stent with biomimetic design
(2) Development of optical coherence tomography (OCT) system for diagnostic imaging of coronary vessels

Project Summary

(1) Coronary stent
- Need: Increased stent procedures due to the increased coronary diseases. Yet 98.1% of vascular stents used in the procedures are foreign products. The market demands a domestic stent product with the substantial clinical superiority.
- Superiority: Stent design to minimize the major shortcoming of the current stents which is late thrombosis leading to a restenosis of the vessel. Use of a hydrophilic polymer, phosphorylcholine, to reduce the inflammation of the treated lesion.

(2) OCT
- Need: The current imaging technologies such as X-ray and intravscular ultrasound (IVUS) have limitations in imaging resolution and target identification of vulnerable plaques. OCT technology overcomes such limitations and utilizes an advanced imaging technology.
- Superiority: Providing hight resolution images 10 times higher than IVUS. Decreased procedural time in coronary vessel diagnosis and stent evaluation. Only imaging technique which can evaluate the performance of bioabsorbable vascular scaffolds.

Business Model

- Sales target: Major university hospitals conducting percutaneous coronary intervention.
- Target apporach: Eearlier involvement of the hospitals through multi institutional large scale clinical trials.
- 2018 milestone: GMP approval for manufacturing and the submission of a clinical investigation plan.
- Technical marketing point: Clinical superiority of applying a proprietary technology, phosphorylcholine polymer application.
- Overseas market expansion: CE approval through clinical trials in Europe.

Main Achievements

- Series A: $1 million in 2017
- New employment: 8 engineers in 2017
- Intellectual property: 9 technology (patent) transfers, 2 domestic patents, 2 international (PCT) patents, 1 design patent