Spotlight On Drug-Device Combination Therapies At BIOTECHNICA 2007.

15th International Trade Fair for Biotechnology (9 - 11 October)

HANNOVER, Germany -- The combination of a pharmacological substance and a medical product - which itself has no effect on biochemical processes inside the human body - is one of the hot topics in the biotech industry today.

The global market for the combination preparations known as "stents" is currently growing by an average of around 11 per cent a year, as a study by the American analysts at BCC Research has shown. According to their calculations, the tiny tubular implants that are used to support the walls of blood vessels will be generating sales worth eight billion US dollars by the year 2010. "This makes drug-device combinations an extraordinarily lucrative market, in which the need for collaboration between commercial companies is very great, and at the same time especially difficult", explains Stephan Ph. Kuhne, who sits on the Board of Management at Deutsche Messe Hannover. "We know that companies operating in these areas have little contact with each other in the normal course of events - so it can be very difficult to find the right partners." And this is where the BIOTECHNICA PARTNERING event comes in - specifically designed to bring together commercial enterprises and research scientists to collaborate on the development of drug-device combinations.

Drug-eluting stents: the star performers in the drug-device world

In the past the main market focus has been on so-called "drug-eluting stents" for coronary heart diseases. Since 2002 surgeons have been using these drug-coated stents to combat hardening of the coronary arteries - popularly dubbed "managers' disease" - which ultimately leads to heart attacks. Although they are notably more expensive that the uncoated implants, patients are asking for them. However, the applications of drug-eluting stents are not confined to the coronary blood vessels. They can also be used in large vessels in the digestive tract or in the peripheral leg arteries.

Although coated stents have been on the market for a comparatively long time, there is still a long way to go in terms of their development. Hitherto the principal coatings available for use in the coronary arteries have been the chemotherapy drug Paclitaxel and the immunosuppressant drug Sirolimus, which help to prevent blockages of the blood vessels. The search is now on for new, more effective medications, optimized dosages - and even brand new ways of combining therapeutic substances with the tiny lattice tubes. At present, not even the standard preparations that would allow the use of coated stents in other vessels are available.

Five target areas for the use of drug-device combinations

Although very large sums of money are being invested in the development of drug-eluting stents, researchers are looking at other promising ways of combining medical products with new pharmacological substances. Apart from stents, we can identify four other areas where great strides are being made. Catheters coated with antibiotics have been used to prevent infections of the urinary tract, while bone cement containing antibiotics reduces the risk of infection, particularly in the case of hip implants. Also falling into this category are biological products for treating wounds and transdermal plasters - typically used to transport hormones into the body through the skin. And photodynamic tumour therapy or PDT is a cancer treatment designed to kill off tumour cells by the targeted use of light. BCC Research estimates that the market for these four areas of application will be worth 3.5 billion US dollars by 2010. With the exception of the orthopaedic applications, all forms of combination therapy are now seeing double-digit growth.

So far the market for drug-device combination therapies has been dominated by the Americans, not least because coated stents for use in coronary vessels have been taken up with enthusiasm by the US health service and by patients in the USA, so that the market has grown much faster than it has in Europe. But driven by new strategic partnerships, of the very kind that BIOTECHNICA is designed to promote, sales of combination therapies in Europe are set to receive a significant boost.

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