Cardiovascular disease remains the most common cause of death in industrialized countries. Hence, major efforts have been made to improve treatment and clinical outcome of patients with arterial occlusive diseases (peripheral artery disease and coronary heart disease). Despite recent technological progress, a large number of patients suffering from arterial occlusive diseases is not eligible or does not profit from current therapies, requiring alternative approaches such as neovascularization therapies. Formation of new blood vessels is a natural process occurring in organs such as the heart or limb muscles after ischemic damage. The understanding of the biology of neovascularization is very advanced and there is a growing number of potentially effective therapeutic agents to stimulate or enhance ongoing neovascularization. In spite of these opportunities, translation to therapeutic neovascularization has been slow.

The aim of the BMM project polymer enabled neovascularization Therapies (short PENT) is the development of a polymer based drug delivery platform that enables local and prolonged delivery of growth factors for the stimulation of neovascularization. MagnaMedics is the only SME in the consortium which is made up of Dutch top research institutes MUMC+, Nederlandse Hartstichting, TNO, TU/e, UMC Leiden, UMC Utrecht and DSM.

Current and future polymers will allow improved release kinetics in combination with targeted delivery of compounds. The central theme of the program is the development of so-called biodegradable “core-shell” microsphere structures, in which the core material will be designed to be compatible with selected therapeutic proteins to induce neovascularization. These microspheres will than be applied via different application pathways, depending on the therapeutic application of choice.

The project is a stepwise upgrading of microspheres, where MagnaMedics is responsible for imaging the spheres either for MRI or via fluorescence imaging. Depending on the choice of factors and the clinical application, different combinations of polymer, technology and factors are needed.

MagnaMedics will focus on the embedding of MRI visible, magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles into the microspheres. This work is more or less a technology transfer from its current activities in MagnaFy where iron oxide nanoparticles are being used to image medical instruments in MRI.

To gain insight into the accumulation of sphere in the target regions and to provide information about the local release, MagnaMedics will develop specific magnetic colloids that can be incorporated into the gel. These colloids can be visualized by MRI for sphere tracking. For experimental purposes the magnetic colloids can be linked to fluorescent markers (such Quantum dots) that allow sensitive follow-up and imaging of particles after release from the gel. In this case MagnaMedics uses its diagnostic portfolio where giant Qdots are part of.

The BioMedical Materials program (BMM) is a public private partnership of universities, university medical centers, companies and patient organizations, dedicated to the development of novel BioMedical Materials and their applications. This is based on the vision that biomedical materials will play a key role in achieving medical breakthroughs that will enable the functional repair and regeneration of tissue, and in the future, possibly organs. See www.bmm-program.nl for more information about this program.