Medical device company has mimicked a snake’s evolutionary advantage to improve the retrieval of blood clots that cause stroke. The company created a novel microstructured catheter that has been validated to improve outcomes for stroke patients.
And its patent-pending platform called TRAP (or thrombus retrieval aspiration platform) emulates a boa constrictor’s teeth arrangement in its biomimetic design to grab onto blood clots without tearing them.
Emboa Medical CEO Ángel Enríquez said the TRAP design demonstrated a greater than 200% increase in blockage removal force compared to a traditional catheter.
Emboa Medical was created by clinical experts at Goodman Campbell Brain and Spine and NYU Langone Health and medical device researchers at Purdue University’s College of Engineering. TRAP was designed by Enríquez and Hyowon Lee, professor in Purdue’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Center for Implantable Devices. And they disclosed TRAP to the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization, which submitted a patent application to protect the intellectual property. OTC also issued a license to Emboa Medical to commercialize the IP.
Another step for bringing TRAP to the marketplace is to establish a manufacturing process to integrate microscale structures into the distal tip of catheters.
Lee received funding from Purdue Innovates Incubator’s Trask Innovation Fund and the CTSI Medtech Incubator to conduct his research to develop TRAP.
Since launching, Emboa Medical has been awarded more than $150,000 in nondilutive funding through winning pitch competitions such as Medtech Color, Purdue Innovates’ New Venture Challenge and Startup Prize: Focus on Health.
Stroke is a leading cause of death worldwide as it kills over 140,000 Americans annually. And nearly 90% of stroke cases are caused by an obstruction of one of the arteries that supply blood to the brain, known as an ischemic stroke.
KEY QUOTE:
“Additionally, the TRAP catheter showed significant benefits in removing clots on the first attempt in a worst-case neurovascular model. It achieved a 40% success rate compared to 10% for conventional smooth inner diameter catheters.”
“We have conducted in vitro experiments that quantitatively demonstrate the advantages of TRAP catheters. Additionally, we will conduct an in vivo porcine model study and preliminarily validate TRAP’s safety and effectiveness by end of Q1 2025. The successful completion of this animal model study will lead to more functional and robust TRAP devices that can facilitate the transition to larger-scale verification activities toward regulatory approval.”
“Additionally, we are a Seedling award recipient for the National Institutes of Health’s Blueprint Medtech program. We have received mentorship from medtech industry experts, a consultation with regulatory experts to establish a regulatory pathway and recently conducted an extensive market research study to validate the focus of our TRAP technology.”
“The use of traditional stent retrievers results in higher rates of perforation due to the metal struts interacting with the vessel walls. This causes intracranial hemorrhages at a higher rate than aspiration catheters, which apply suction through a tube. This can be asymptomatic or symptomatic, but the truth is no doctor is comfortable causing damage to a patient’s blood vessels.”
“Thus, aspiration catheters are an attractive tool because they achieve reported faster reperfusion times, lower rates of distal emboli (13.2% vs. 3.4%) and vessel injury (9.3% vs. 1.8%) at lower costs. Yet the aspiration force is dramatically decreased and limited by the smaller vessel diameter. TRAP was designed to address this obstacle.”
- Emboa Medical CEO Ángel Enríquez
