US researchers develop intravenous blood-clotting agent

New York (Dec 28, 2009) : Whether in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan or on the world's roads, many thousands of people bleed to death each year as a result of traffic accidents, gunshot wounds and bombs.
Traumatic injury is the leading cause of death for people aged 4 to 44, US researchers wrote this month in the journal Science Translational Medicine. But they think they have found a way to halt
internal bleeding with the help of nanotechnology.
A team led by Erin Lavik, a biomedical engineer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, has developed synthetic blood platelets from biodegradable polymers already used in treatments approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), whose regulatory purview includes biologics and blood products.
If injected into a trauma patient, the synthetic nanoparticles could bind at the site of injury with natural blood platelets, thereby hastening clotting. In tests, the synthetic platelets halved
bleeding time in wounded rats. Lavik and her colleagues said that injecting the nanoparticles was like adding sand bags to a levee along a flooding river.
When blood starts to flow from a wound, the researchers explained, natural platelets try to staunch it by binding together using fibrous protein molecules. The synthetic platelets augment this process by binding to the natural ones.
To prevent the synthetic platelets from clumping into dangerous clots, each one is built with a surrounding "shield" of water. In the test animals, surplus synthetic platelets were flushed out of the body within 24 hours.
The researchers said they had been looking for a means to stem internal bleeding that medics could carry in their field packs. "The military has been phenomenal at developing technology to halt bleeding from external or compressible injuries," Lavik remarked, pointing out that the nanoparticles could complement existing therapies

Vascular Solutions Wins Appeal In Disparagement Litigation With Marine Polymer; To Accept $3.2 Mln In Damages

Monday, medical device company Vascular Solutions, Inc. (VASC:News ) said that the First Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed the earlier judgment in its favor in its product disparagement litigation with Marine Polymer Technologies and $2.7 million in damages to be paid to Vascular.
In the two-week trial in April 2008, the jury has issued a permanent injunction prohibiting Marine Polymer from making disparaging statements concerning the safety of Vascular Solutions' D-Stat hemostat products. The jury had also awarded $4.5 million in damages to Vascular Solutions and found five statements made by Marine Polymer regarding Vascular Solutions' D-Stat products false.
The Appeals Court,however, has determined that due to differences in opinion among the judges Vascular may either accept a $2.7 million award of damages, plus interest, or insist upon a new trial limited to the issue of determining the reasonable amount of damages.
Adding interest at the statutory rate, Vascular said that it calculates the $2.7 million award to currently total approximately $3.2 million. Today's appellate decision is subject to Marine Polymer Technologies' ability to petition for rehearing by the First Circuit and appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The permanent injunction issued against Marine Polymer at the conclusion of the earlier trial will remain in effect.
Independently, the Appeals Court found that the evidence "provides ample proof of malice. And the most inflammatory of the five statements, and the most glaringly unsupported, are the two that associated D-Stat Dry with specific and serious outcomes in percentages that would be remarkable for a relatively straightforward medical task -- to stop bleeding at a modest-size doctor-created incision."
Howard Root, CEO, Vascular Solutions, said, "In order to conclude this litigation, we intend to accept the $2.7 million award of damages, plus interest, and to forgo the cost and distraction of an additional trial on damages. We expect the final steps in this litigation to be concluded during the first half of 2010, and the approximately $3.2 million in damages and interest to be collected by Vascular Solutions without substantial additional expense."
VASC is currently trading at $8.40, down $0.05 or 0.59, on the Nasdaq.