TissueGen and BMS Join Forces for Drug Eluting Textile

TissueGen Inc. and Biomedical Structures LLC (BMS) have partnered to develop a finished textile platform for drug-eluting medical device applications—such as small diameter vascular grafts and stents, tissue and nerve regeneration, orthopedics and sutures—using TissueGen’s drug delivery technology. The extrusion technology from TissueGen reportedly enables absorbable fibers to be loaded with a wider variety of drugs and biologics. BMS’s expertise is in biomedical textiles.

TissueGen’s technology is purpose-built for advanced drug delivery and sustained therapeutic release. Its core technology includes fiber extrusion at room temperature, which is aimed at preserving the biological activity of incorporated drugs and therapeutic agents. This enables drug delivery through biodegradable fiber, a format that expands the types of agents that can directly be incorporated into implantable medical devices.

The hope is that this platform will allow medical device developers to incorporate high levels of manufacturing tolerance to provide tailored release kinetics for in vivo support and regeneration applications. The biomaterial format also has tunable release profiles. TissueGen claims it can be used across varioud therapeutics and can be engineered for any biologic therapeutic, from small pharmaceuticals to protein class drugs such as enzymes. Drugs are incorporated into the fiber according to device performance requirements using a combination of commercially available polymer components, including PLLA (polylactic acid) and PDO (polydioxanone).

BMS intends to use the TissueGen polymer extrusion platform to develop biomedical textile structures designed for drug delivery within the body. Because the TissueGen technology allows for the engineering of both chemical composition and mechanical properties such as size, shape, and porosity to each specific application, a single structure can satisfy both physical and pharmaceutical performance requirements without requiring additional material support for implantation. The polymer platform is bio-absorbable and can control therapeutic release over time in accordance with its designed degradation profile as device performance requires—and this feature lends itself to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications.

“TissueGen’s polymer technology is the drug delivery solution that can help overcome many of the constraints of current polymer-based systems,” said BMS CEO Dean Tulumaris. “As BMS works to provide our customers with a suite of solutions for every device design challenge, we believe the TissueGen absorbable delivery platform will provide a tremendous addition to our biomedical textile development capabilities for cardiovascular, tissue engineering, and other applications.”

“We look forward to working with BMS and its customers to bring this technology to market,” said Christopher Knowles, CEO of TissueGen. “With its extensive expertise and leadership in the medical textiles market, Biomedical Structures is suited to offer our drug delivery platform as a choice for medical device and pharma companies.”

Dallas, Texas-based TissueGen focuses in extruding biodegradable polymer fibers with broad drug delivery capabilities. The company has a portfolio of drug delivery technologies with the capability to incorporate and elute therapeutics and standard pharmaceuticals in hydrophobic polymeric fibers or tubes for sustained therapeutic release.

BMS specializes in knitting, braiding, weaving, nonwovens, and composites, and uses a range of biocompatible absorbable and non-absorbable materials in devices, drug delivery and surgical systems for advanced applications such as bifurcated stent grafts, tapered tendon and ligament repair structures and heart valve solutions. The company is based in Warwick, R.I.