Date: May 01, 2012 Author: press release Source: Company Data (
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Gamma Therapeutics Awarded U.S. Provisional Patent for GammaMist Blood Clotting Bypass Device Designed to Address Hemorrhage During Combat Casualty Care.
May 1, 2012--Portland, Oregon-Gamma Therapeutics, an Oregon early-stage biotechnology venture developing solutions for cardiovascular disease risk assessment, surgical therapy and combat casualty care, announced today that the company has been awarded a U.S Provisional Patent (#61/632,696) for its novel human biocompatible GammaMist™ Blood Clotting Bypass Device designed to address warfighter hemorrhage problems and potentially reduce mortality rates during enroute medevac combat casualty care.
Hemorrhage Control #1 Priority of U.S. Military Medicine. Ever since American warfighters took to the first battlefield, U.S. military medicine has sought a solution to save warfighters from dying needlessly due to massively hemorrhaging gunshot wounds and deep penetrating injuries from projectiles, shrapnel and improvised explosive devices. These injuries create large, irregularly-shaped wounds that make adequate compression and hemorrhage control difficult. Although initially stabilized at the point-of-wound with tourniquets, hemostatic dressings and compression devices, as soon as resuscitation procedures, i.e., intravenous (IV) saline, are initiated to raise the patient's blood pressure and stabilize their medical condition, life-threatening dilutional coagulopathy can occur. In this condition, the body's natural clotting proteins are consumed by coagulation at the wound site or diluted by IV fluids and the result is new massive hemorrhage and, potentially, death.
GammaMist Blood Clotting Bypass Device Resupplies Clotting Factors. GammaMist uniquely "bypasses" the consumed or diluted clotting proteins by resupplying the blood with new clotting factors, including dry (lyophilized) human thrombin and human fibrinogen. These clotting factors are rehydrated with antimicrobial-infused sterile water under pressure and rapidly "sprayed" over the bleeding injury or wound to rapidly clot the blood and slow bleeding. The handheld, single use, emergency response device
allows medics to control renewed bleeding until the warfighter arrives at definitive trauma care.
GammaMist Mechanism of Action. The mechanism of human blood coagulation comprises two essential steps in the human body: (1) inactive prothrombin is converted into thrombin, and (2) the thrombin acts as an enzyme to convert fibrinogen into fibrin strands that trap platelets, blood cells and plasma to form a clot. In the case of GammaMist, the clots produced by the commercially-produced thrombin and fibrinogen are similar to a plasma clot produced naturally by the body, but may in fact, have a higher tensile strength, since concentrations of commercial fibrinogen are about 20 times higher than in the blood.
According to Dr. David H. Farrell, CSO, "The technology platform for GammaMist, like all Gamma Therapeutics products, is comprised of naturally-occurring proteins in the human body responsible for the clotting mechanism. Through the use of recombinant-protein derived or human plasma-derived proteins in place of artificial materials, such as surgical glues and resins, we can provide human biocompatible products for combat casualty care that further reduce the risk of viral infection, inflammation and other negative adverse reactions."
Military Medics Require Rapid Response Medical Solutions. During enroute emergency care, time is of the essence and medics need a simple, readily available and rapidly deployable care solution to control massive bleeding and prevent death until the patient is evacuated to definitive trauma care. The fact is, blood management devices designed to control bleeding by quickly closing wounds, externally clotting blood or adding back in clotting factors consumed by coagulation or diluted by conditions of dilutional coagulopathy, simply do not exist today. GammaMist is designed to fill this vital enroute medical care gap.
Gamma Therapeutics hopes to complete prototype development of GammaMist by Fall, 2012 and submit an FDA pre-IDE application for the clotting bypass device by Winter, 2013. Gamma Therapeutics continues to submit extramural medical research grants to various U.S. military medicine scientific research organizations, such as the US Army's Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) and the Henry H. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine in hopes of receiving
funding for research, development and commercialization," states David Eastman, chief executive officer.
About Gamma Therapeutics, Inc.
Gamma Therapeutics is an Oregon early stage biotechnology venture developing solutions for cardiovascular disease risk assessment, surgical therapy and combat casualty care and currently is funded with a 3-year, $1.56 M NIH/SBIR grant. Patented and patent-pending products under development include the: GammaCoeur™ CVD Risk Assay, GammaSeal™ Surgical Incision and Wound Closure Sealant, Gammarin™ Anticoagulant Blood Thinner, GammaTF™ Warfighter Hemostatic Dressing and the GammaMist™ Clotting Bypass Device. The company is headquartered at 2611 SW Third Avenue, Suite 280N, Portland, Oregon 97201. For more information, go to:
www.gamma-therapeutics.com
Media Contact: David Eastman, CEO, deastman@gamma-therapeutics.com , 503.222.2313
™GammaSeal, GammaCoeur, Gammarin, GammaMist and GammaTF, the products and brand names, and Gamma
Therapeutics, the name & logomark, are trademarks of Gamma Therapeutics, Inc., Portland, Oregon . All Rights Reserved © 2012
