The University of South Dakota (USD) and Sanford Health are collaborating to produce more effective drug-coated balloons to treat peripheral artery disease.
The new devices created through this collaboration, based on intellectual property developed by Sanford’s Patrick Kelly and USD’s Gopinath Mani, can more accurately deliver drugs to specific arteries.
Kelly and Mani’s method is a revolutionary step forward. Drug-coated balloons usually release drugs in a burst profile to arteries to repair damaged walls and prevent future re-narrowing. The downside is that it requires many balloons. The new method would deliver balloons that can be tailored to time-release drugs, which helps cut down the overall number of balloons needed.
“This time-released method of delivering drugs via balloons is economical and may reduce the amount of unneeded chemo therapeutic agent that enters the body,” Kelly said. “If this technology works the way we think it will, we may also be able to use fewer of these costly balloons.”
Kelly, a board certified and fellowship-trained vascular and general surgeon, is also a clinical research scientist with Sanford Research. Mani is an assistant professor in USD's biomedical engineering program.
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