A drug delivery system tuned to the endogenous mechanical environment

Technology Overview:

Tissues within the body experience mechanical perturbations across multiple force magnitudes and length scales, from mechanotransduction at the cell level to the dynamics of load-bearing joints. These forces not only maintain tissue homeostasis, but can also initiate degenerative processes when applied at supra-physiologic levels. Given the centrality of mechanical loading in normal tissue function, Drs. Mauck, Dodge, and Lee at the University of Pennsylvania developed a mechanically activated drug delivery system to stimulate regeneration and repair in mechanically loaded musculoskeletal tissues (e.g. cartilage, muscle, bone).

This technology has a wide variety of uses, such as prophylactic treatment of a joint after surgery, prevention of post-traumatic osteoarthritis, and improvement of cartilage regeneration and repair using tissue-engineered cartilage strategies.

Advantages:

• Localized delivery
• Sequential release of therapeutics over a long period of time
• Ease of maintenance of drug concentration within a therapeutic range
• Physiologic/self- regulating release

Stage of Development:

• Proof of concept using a model microcapsule system 

Intellectual Property:

• US Patent Pending
• European Patent Pending 

Reference Media:

• Tu, Fuquan, and Daeyeon Lee. Langmuir 2012 Jul 3; 28(26): 9944.
• Bhavana Mohanraj et al.  “Mechano-activatable microcapsules for tunable drug delivery” Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference, 2015, June 17

Desired Partnerships:

• Collaboration

Docket # 15-7304