A Review of Biosneosrs Interantionals Technology and It’s Future Application
You enter the hospital gushing with blood. You are an HBR patient(high bleeding risk), and you’re on the verge of death due to how much blood you have lost.
Once you make a recovery, you’re presented with the option of a life-saving technology called Bio Freedom Ultra from a company called Biosensors International.
The tech is a 84μm stent that’s inserted into the coronary artery, and it’s coated with a novel product; Biolumus A9. The tech basically gives you the required supplements to help your endothelial cells regrow faster, and strengthen your coronary arteries.
This is just one of the countless products that Biosensors international has developed over its 22-year lifespan.
There Founding and Expansion
In 1989, the company Biosensors Internation Ltd was founded with the original intention of manufacturing critical care products.
Just 6 years later, they take a shift from producing to innovating when they start doing their own research.
4 years later, they developed their first drug-eluting stent(earlier version of product listed in the intro), making them one of the very first companies to develop lifesaving technology on the nanoscale(nanotechnology).
2003 was the first year they started producing, and using, their tech in humans. From then until 2006, they worked to gain approval for use in the E.U.
In 2006(BioFreedom), 2008(BioMatrix), and 2010(BioMatrix Flex) they develop three new products, and a 9-month study shows that they are of comparable safety and efficacy to the best in the industry.
In 2013 and 14 they developer the product Chroma(the first cobalt chromium bare stent on the market) and proceeded to get it approved for use in just one year.
One(2015), and followed by two(2017) year results showed that their product boredom was both significantly safer, and more effective than regular metal stents in high bleeding risk(HBR) patients.
In 2020, Biosensors International and Blue Sail Medical acquired Swiss-based NVT AG to help shift their focus to in-surgery products, after all of their existing ones are deemed non-surgical.
Ever since the company’s founding in 1989, they’ve been working towards touching patients’ lives by pioneering medical technologies. Since 1989 they’ve done just that with a total of 55 patients in the field of medicine/nanomedicine.
What’s also shown is how successful they can be. Annual revenue can range but is often approaching 300 million/year(for more on all their finances, check this out).
Their Current Products
Ba9 or Biolimus A9 is the drug found on all of their current stents, and it’s what “makes all the magic work”.
BA9 is a sirolimus/umirolimus derivative(type of drug) that inhibits/stops the growth of factor-driven cell proliferation — stops/limits the growth-stopping compounds made in your body(just the ones that make certain cells(e.g. t-cells)).
When Ba9 is put on a drug-coated stent(see below), it gets released into one’s arteries during a 28-day period.
Ba9 is designed to enter the vessel wall more rapidly than a counterpart like sirolimus, and then it attaches and enters the smooth muscle cell membranes causing cell cycle arrest at stage G0(see diagram).
Cell cycle arrest in part by both the p21 and p53 genes.
These tumour suppressor proteins work to stop the cell cycle.
As bad as this seems, it causes bad endothelial to stop being produced. This then allows for better endothelial cells to be created, and then build up the strength in one’s arteries.
Therefore, Ba9 helps build up endothelial cells who’ll then work to strengthen the arteries.
Cardiovascular products
DCS — Drug-Coated Stent
The main product this company makes is a drug-coated stent or DCS. These stents are coated with BA9(discussed above), and are designed to strengthen the arteries in the body.
The stent is microscopic at just 84µm and can transfer all the BA9 into the walls of the arteries in about 28 days. The BA9 helps the production of endothelial cells in the arteries, which strengthens them to lower the risk of clotting and bleeding out.
DCS wasn’t the first of their type. For a while, people in situations of bleeding out, or people with weak arteries would put bare-metal stents in their arteries(same purpose, but no drugs to help the growth of endothelial cells).
Clinical studies showed that DCS’s were superior to bare metal stents in reducing the risk of major cardiac events.
With almost any medical product, there are risks. DSCs are relatively new, but what is known is that allergic reactions are possible, and myocardial infractions are a small possibility.
One complication that could arise is putting the stent into someone’s artery. Luckily, though, this process is super easy. A doctor inserts a catheter into the arteries via the arm.
With help from an X-ray, it’s moved to the correct location(e.g. the weakest spot), the catheter is inflated, a stent is released into the arteries, and then the 28-day process of the Ba9 diluting into the tissue is commenced.
What Could Lie Next
In today’s world, we don’t hear of many people being deemed, high bleed-risk patients. This is intern a good thing, but it means that Biosensors International doesn’t have a lot of market application.
Different diseases/viruses like that of covid affect the arteries, and raise the risk of clotting.
I believe that a change in the product’s designed application could result in much more revenue, and most importantly, more lives being saved.
If the drug-coated stents are targeted to help people recover from covid(e.g. stopping clotting risks), there is a whole new market of lives to be saved.
To the best of my knowledge, this wouldn’t require any change in product design, but rather the way it’s marketed/ intended to be used.
In a world where COVID is causing death everywhere, I really do think Biosensors International should shift their focus to acquire more market.
This could result in their main series of products; drug-coated stents, to be utilized around the world, and their revolutionary drugs on those products(Ba9) to be given the capability of positively affecting tens of thousands to potentially millions of lives.
This company was developed quite a while ago, but with the right shifts in targets, Biosensors international could become a cutting edge scientific research and production company.
