Research

The blood-brain barrier represents a considerable hurdle to the delivery of molecules larger than 40 nm into the Central Nervous System.  The development of techniques to bypass this barrier could revolutionise the management of neurological disease.

A variety of drugs developed for a range of neurological diseases have shown great promise in pre-clinical studies, but have failed to reach clinical end points when translated in to human trials. Renishaw believes that these failures can be attributed to a number of common issues that can be eradicated through the use of Convection Enhanced Delivery (CED) with appropriate stereotactic and infusion technologies.

Interests

CED utilizes extremely fine intracranial catheters and low infusion rates to impart drugs directly into the brain extracellular space.  In contrast to methods such as intraventricular or intrathecal delivery, CED does not depend on diffusion.  The use of a carefully designed catheter with a precisely controlled infusion rate leads to the development of a pressure gradient, along which drug passes directly into the extracellular space.  Consequently, unlike diffusion dependent delivery protocols, it is possible to achieve controlled, homogeneous drug distribution, regardless of drug molecular size, over large volumes of the brain and spinal cord.

Objectives

Renishaw’s objectives are threefold:

• to improve medical imaging in terms of usability and levels of accuracy to allow improved confidence in identification of brain anatomy both prior to and during surgical procedures
• to improve the link between medical imaging and stereotactic systems to allow enhanced precision in terms of delivery of therapeutic devices in to the Central Nervous System (CNS)
• to provide next generation therapeutic delivery systems to open up the CNS to the wide variety of drugs that have shown promise in experiments leading up to the clinic, but that failed due to inefficient or ineffective delivery devices.

Developments

Renishaw is developing a range of stereotactic and micro fluidic devices that will be entirely compatible with CED in terms of a robust, precise delivery and controlled predictable infusion for either long or short term implantation.  Currently these devices are being evaluated in the delivery of a number of therapeutics from a variety of biotech and pharmaceutical companies with the aim of progressing to clinical trials in the coming months.