Background

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) has a history in modern medicine and has become the standard of care for some childhood disorders and in treating critically ill adults with respiratory and cardiac problems to allow recovery from severe respiratory diseases. Traditional products used for ECMO are complex with multiple suppliers of hardware and have a large footprint requiring constant monitoring and maintenance during use. They have suffered from reliability issues and are not in line with the demands of modern clinical needs. These issues have prevented the widespread uptake of the identifiable benefits of ECMO.

Technology Overview

The technology is a small, compact and entirely disposable product with a reusable controller base unit. It combines a pump, oxygenator and heating unit. Unlike traditional products there is no requirement for an external water connection which means that the product can be fully portable. The portability is also enhanced by having a built-in battery that can power the unit for up to 3 hours.

Stage of Development

Prototypes have been lab-tested.

Benefits

Clinical benefits:

Fully Integrated Product – simple and fast set-up
Portability and battery powered for ease of transportation within and outside the hospital
Potential reduced inflammatory response, and reduced requirement for anti-clotting factors
Can be applied to all ages of patients – including Neonates
Components can be adapted for use in other clinical areas

Hospital benefits:

Simple to maintain
Simple to set-up and use expanding the use potential within hospitals to improve patient outcomes
Reliable due to less interfaces and compact technology
Less blood product required due to decrease in surface area and circuit volume
Smaller footprint that can free up clinical space for more patients in ICUs etc.
Single use per-patient sterile components reducing the risk of infection

Applications

ECMO
CPB (Cardiopulmonary Bypass)

Opportunity

The University of Strathclyde seeks a licensee for the patent portfolio supporting this technology.

Miniaturised Integrated Ultra Portable Perfusion System

Patents

IP Status

Seeking