Cordis Corporation

Binney & Smith Inc.

David Cook

Jacob Leidner

Robert Falotico

Jonathon Zhong Zhao

Gerard H Llanos

Vipul Bhupendra Dave

Pallassana V Narayanan

Luis Rodrigo Pineiro

Brian R White

Lily Kuo

Stephen Johnstone

Medical devices, and in particular implantable medical devices, may be coated to minimize or substantially eliminate a biological organism's reaction to the introduction of the medical device to the organism. The medical devices may be coated with any number of biocompatible materials. Therapeutic drugs, agents or compounds may be mixed with the biocompatible materials and affixed to at least a portion of the medical device. These therapeutic agents or compounds may also further reduce a biological organism's reaction to the introduction of the medical device to the organism. In addition, these therapeutic drugs, agents and/or compounds may be utilized to promote healing, including the prevention of thrombosis. The drugs, agents, and/or compounds may also be utilized to treat specific disorders, including vulnerable plaque. Implantable coated medical devices may be processed through annealing to better control the elution characteristics of the therapeutic agents. Furthermore, annealing leads to better therapeutic agent stability and a larger device shelf-life.

Therapeutic agent elution control process

A stent is positioned on an undersized mandrel and the stent is coated with an excess of a polymer and drug solution. The stent is rotated to spin off the excess of the coating. The stent is then moved into a new, clean position on the mandrel. The process is repeated a few times, after which time the coating is already dry and non-sticky. This process forms a conforming coating. Various important polymer solution parameters include viscosity, solvent evaporation rate and several others. The actual type of coating polymer is not as important as how the surface of the stent is treated, according to the steps described herein.

Device and process for coating stents

An eraser composition comprising 22-41 wt % styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene block copolymer, 5-15 wt % ethylene/propylene copolymer, 30-50 wt % calcium carbonate, 10-25 wt % factice; and 0.1-7 wt % pumice is provided. The eraser composition optionally contains up to 1 wt % titanium dioxide. The eraser composition preferably has a hardness of from 70 to 85 Shore A.

Eraser

Growing community of inventors

Oakville, Canada

David Cook