Nanotech Catheter Solutions (NCS), an early stage firm owned by medical device holding company Paragon Intellectual Properties, has inked a deal with an electronics company called Unidym for the use of its carbon nanotubes (CNTs). In exchange for a 20% equity stake, NCS will use Unidym’s technology to develop miniaturized cardiovascular devices.
CNTs are tubular cylinders of carbon atoms that have extraordinary electrical, mechanical, optical, thermal, chemical, and biological properties. As structural materials, CNTs have exhibited greater than 50 times the tensile strength of steel, while being lighter than aluminum. As thermal materials, they have shown among the highest thermal conductivities of any known material, with the ability to transmit twice as much heat as pure diamond. And as electronic materials, these nanotubes have displayed extraordinary metallic and semi-conducting characteristics.
Unidym believes many of these characteristics make CNTs potentially useful in the medical device field. The deal with NCS is the first in Unidym’s longterm plan to license its intellectual property beyond the electronics industry.
“We intend to replicate this model in other areas such as nanotube-based therapeutics, diagnostics, field emission displays, nonvolatile memory, and composite materials,” said Unidym CEO Art Swift, in a press release.
And NCS is hopeful that Unidym’s technology will help in the newbie’s quest to miniaturize vascular intervention devices and delivery systems.
“The application of nanotechnology to interventional devices such as catheters and stents could change the rules under which device designers operate, allowing them to implement improvements not previously deemed possible,” said Mark Bates, CEO of NCS’s parent company, in a press release. “This agreement with Unidym gives NCS critical intellectual property in this promising field.”
In addition to Unidym’s 20% equity stake, the companies have agreed to negotiate a supply agreement or royalty.