Smart Reactors

The interaction of medical devices with blood leads to cellular as well as humoral reactions, which can result in an unwanted inflammation and activation of the coagulation.

The blood contacting devices involved in medical applications include a wide range of plastics, metals and alloys. These materials have excellent mechanical and physical properties, however they have variable hemocompatibility and when in contact with blood can lead to a pathophysiological reaction similar to traumatic shock. Therefore, minimization of the activation mechanisms induced by the foreign surfaces used in blood contacting medical devices is of top priority.

While heparin coatings have been the standard for more than 30 years, new surface treatments, mainly without heparin and not regarded as pharmacologically active surfaces are becoming the physician preference. The unaltered long-term aim is to create an optimal biocompatible surface that is not recognized as “non-physiological” by the blood and thus does not provoke any pathological activation of the humoral and cellular defence mechanisms.

Smart Reactors have developed a proprietary passive surface coating technology that serves this unmet need.