Biodegradable ureteral stents: based on natural polymers

A urinary stent is a thin tube, which is inserted in the ureter to prevent or treat the obstruction of urine flow from the kidney. Currently, nearly 100% of the people who have an urological stent are likely to develop a bacterial infection within 30 days, which increases morbidity threefold. We have developed HydrUstent, a tailor-made biodegradable, anti-bacterial urological stent, which eliminates the need for a second surgery, required nowadays for catheter removal. Per year are deployed in Europe approximately 93 000 catheters and 37 500 in the United States. Our market opportunity comes from the fact that we have a unique and innovative degradable catheter that prevents more than 135 thousand medical interventions, reducing the cost of treatment by nearly 60%. The team has carried out successfully the first in vivo validation of HydrUStent in a pig model. For this phase the team had secured funding of 18 thousand euros. The technology developed and already IP secured by a Portuguese and an European patent application. The tecnology transfer agreement has been signed and the rights to explore the patent belong to the company. The team intends to pursue preclinical studies and clinical trials for which estimates a required investment of 1.5 M euros. Within the commercialization strategy we envisage the pursue of the complete file required to fill the application for pre-clinical trials. The team intends to continue the discovery of new medical devices and develop a portfolio of products for urological complications, driving innovation in urology field.
HydrUStent is totally biodegradable in a homogeneous way.