Contact:
Devinder Bawa, President and CEO
Phone: 240.350.1110
Hemodyne (Bethesda, MD) announced today that the US Patent and Trademark Office has issued a patent to the Company for using its Platelet Contractile Force (PCF) technology for two vital sets of applications. First, the patent covers the use of PCF for monitoring both hemostatic and anticoagulant drugs. Using PCF, doctors will be able to better dose and manage drug therapy for a wide variety of patients in areas such as cardiology, surgery, vascular care and kidney dialysis, patients who take a variety of powerful anti-clotting drugs. Similarly, the patent covers the use of PCF for monitoring hemostatic drugs, typically taken by hemophiliacs and others with blood disorders that cause excessive bleeding. These drugs have recently become a tool for trauma surgeons treating patients with massive bleeding—including US troops in Iraq.
Secondly, the patent covers the use of PCF to help determine clotting problems, including both excessive clotting risk as well as excessive bleeding risk. The latter is an important medical issue—for example, in patients scheduled for surgery. Patients with excessive clotting risk are hyper-coaguable and are considered to be at elevated risk for heart attack and stroke.
In announcing the patent award, Hemodyne CEO Devinder S. Bawa stated: “This is another important addition to Hemodyne’s intellectual property portfolio and provides further confirmation that not only is our technology indeed unique but also that we will likely have important applications for the practice of medicine. We’re especially pleased with this patent as we plan for our first FDA clearance.
Hemodyne, Inc. is an early stage medical device company that has developed the leading platelet testing system in the world. Hemodyne’s point of care Hemostasis Analysis System (HAS) will revolutionize patient care in two ways. First, the HAS will allow physicians to finally administer and manage drug therapy for cardiac, stroke, surgical, renal and hemophilia patients with accuracy and certainty. Second, the HAS will also substantially improve physicians’ ability to gauge bleeding risk pre-surgically. Effective monitoring of these drug therapies, as well as gauging surgical bleeding risk, via true platelet function assessment, is a substantial unmet clinical need and current diagnostic tools do not provide adequate guidance to physicians. The lack of sufficient clinical information often leads to dangerous and expensive complications. Assessment of platelet function is the only means of accurately determining a patient’s exposure to excessive bleeding or clotting.