A Medical Device Daily

IQ Micro (West Palm Beach, Florida), the exclusive licensor of micro-pumps required in the field of microfluidic technology, reported successful completion of a micro fabricating program conducted by the Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique SA (CSEM; Neuchatel, Switzerland).

IQ said that this is an important breakthrough because microchips containing thousands of invisible pumps can now be mass produced for a range of applications, including lab-on-a-chip technology used to perform high-speed medical analysis.

Johnny Christiansen, president/CEO of IQ, said, “To our knowledge this is a first in our industry. . . With a proven ability to micro-fabricate thousands of our 'Invisible Pumps' on a single micro-chip, the mass production of complex microfluidic systems has been significantly simplified. We intend to proceed as quickly as possible to exploit this competitive advantage by entering into licensing arrangements involving multiple applications of this technology.”

Microfluidics has developed from the microchip industry. However, as opposed to the flow of electrical current through a silicon chip, microfluidic technology involves circuits of tiny chambers, channels and pumps that direct the flow of liquids on a single micro-chip.

“There are literally thousands of potential applications representing potentially billions of dollars in business,” IQ said, including diagnostics, lab-on-a-chip technology, flat screen displays, electronics cooling, micro fuel cells, glucose monitoring and manufacturing process control, automated DNA analysis, drug development, enhanced battery life span and medical diagnostics.

IQ Micro is a licensing company formed last year to commercialize technology developed for use in the microfluidics industry. The company has acquired exclusive sales and marketing licensing rights to the technology developed and patented by the Norwegian company Osmotex. As part of the worldwide licensing agreement, Osmotex has secured an 85% ownership position in IQ Micro. The company said it is pursuing licensing opportunities for the patented Invisible Pump.

Synova opens Boston facility

Synova (Lausanne, Switzerland), a developer of water jet-guided laser technology, reported that it will open a second U.S.-based micromachining center (MMC) in Boston, for meeting the high-precision needs of medical, electronics, and tooling markets. The Boston MMC is set to open in January 2007, in tandem with the recently announced Silicon Valley-based MMC, addressing, the company said, the needs of both the West and East Coast hubs of technology innovation.

Synova said that the Boston MMC is chartered with expanding customer support and adoption of Synova's Laser MicroJet technology.

“Further expansion in the U.S. reinforces our strategy to better support all of our served markets worldwide,” said Synova CEO Bernold Richerzhagen. “Proximity to our customers is our top priority, and as we continue to promote the adoption of Laser MicroJet in the medical, electronics, and tooling markets, Boston represents an ideal locale to address our U.S. customers' needs.”

Synova reports more than 50 full-production machines at customer sites worldwide, of which 12 tools are operating in the U.S. In the U.S., the company says it sees growth potential in the Laser MicroJet for semiconductor applications such as high-power LED wafer dicing, medical applications such as the cutting of metal coronary stents and surgical blades, as well as alternative energy applications such as the cutting and grooving of photovoltaic silicon or germanium solar cells.

The Boston MMC will serve as a competence center for demonstration, sample testing and application development, and will feature its LCS 300, used for medical applications as well as the electronics market to cut, drill and groove metal masks including stencils for PCB, wafer bump stencils and screens for flat panel displays (shadow or evaporation masks). Synova says its Laser MicroJet technology supplants conventional lasers and other cutting technologies without damaging the thermo-mechanically sensitive materials.

Synova's global expansion through its MMCs is funded by recent financing totaling CHF 10 million ($8.1 million) from Swiss banks.

Inovio wins new electroporation patent

Inovio Biomedical (San Diego) reported receiving an additional European patent expanding its electroporation technology platform (EP1023107) with claims related to the delivery of DNA-based therapeutics into muscle, the preferred tissue for extended production of antigens and other bioactive agents and DNA vaccination. The patent includes claims covering pulsing and agent delivery conditions using electroporation.

Inovio has created a patent estate around the medical use of electroporation to deliver genes and drugs to a variety of tissues and has acquired DNA delivery patents with the acquisition of Inovio AS in 2005 and exclusive rights to several different patent portfolios from Sphergen and RMR in 2006.

Combined with the company's own patents, Inovio says it is “the partner of choice to enable electroporation-based delivery of genes, drugs and other macromolecules for vaccination, immunotherapy and gene therapy as well as applications such as tumor ablation.”

“This patent provides even more strength to our expansive patent estate involving electroporation as a means of delivering therapeutic substances,” said Avtar Dhillon, CEO. “We have assembled a preeminent patent position in the electroporation of DNA, and we are able to provide our partners with the optimal conditions for clinical utility and tolerability. Inovio has its CE mark and has accumulated extensive human clinical experience with electroporation, including nine clinical trials currently underway, four involving electroporation-based delivery of therapeutic DNA.”

Inovio is focused on commercializing its Selective Electrochemical Tumor Ablation therapy, designed for local treatment for solid tumors, with selective killing of cancer cells while preserving surrounding healthy tissue. It is moving its lead product, the MedPulser, through pre-marketing studies for head and neck cancer, and skin cancers in Europe where it has CE marking, a U.S. Phase III pivotal study for head and neck cancer, and Phase I trials for pancreatic and breast cancer.