IIT Roorkee partners with Univlabs Technologies for urology devices

Available clinical stents are made up of silicone and polyurethane polymer.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee and UnivLabs Technologies have signed a technology transfer agreement and an MOA for translating research findings into real-world applications.

The relationship enhances the potential for success in developing and commercialising the technology developed by a team of researchers from IIT Roorkee and resources with UnivLabs Technologies. The technology is has been explained as 'a biodegradable polymeric composite with enzymatic degradation for ureteral stent and its methods of preparation'.

The patented technology is based on the ureteral stents, these are often used to maintain fluid drainage from the kidney to the bladder when the ureter is obstructed due to some clinical reason such as kidney stone, tumor, blood clot or post-operative swelling and infection. They are required to be in place for a maximum of four months in general.

The currently used devises being non-degradable, needs a surgery to remove them and are often associated with discomfort leading to pain, urinary tract infection, stent migration, fragmentation of breakage, and very importantly sedimentation on them, known as encrustation, IIT Roorkee said in a statement.

Available clinical stents are made up of silicone and polyurethane polymer. A team of researchers, including Professor Debrupa Lahiri, Professor Partha Roy, Gunjan Kaushik from IIT Roorkee and Dressor Anil Mandhani from Univ Labs and Fortis, Gurgaon, have developed materials for a total biodegradable stent with required degradation profile and mechanical integrity for an ideal ureteral stent, which will reduce biofilm formation and encrustation, while also ensuring that the stent disappears completely without the need for a second surgery for its removal.