ComPaMED: Trendsetter in the Field of Nanomedicine

“German industry is at the forefront of international innovation in the field of medical engineering,“ concludes the annual Innovation Monitor report by the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE - Verband der Elektrotechnik, Elektronik und Informationstechnik, Frankfurt am Main).11/09/2006

In Düsseldorf, suppliers offer a glimpse into the future of medical engineering

Together with micro- and nanotechnologies, which are currently regarded as providing the main impetus for innovation, medical technology counts as the most important stimulus for technical innovation in Germany. “Germany is far ahead of the competition and will still be defending this lead in ten years time. However, Asia should catch up slightly,“ says the VDE study. It is precisely in combination with mirco- and nanotechnology, in which Germany also has a prominent position, that medical technology has become the flagship of Germany as a centre of high-tech engineering – bearing out the motto “engineered in Germany.” It is possible, against this background, to see the particular importance of COMPAMED. The leading international trade fair for the supplier market for medical products will be running, for the 15th time, parallel to the world’s largest medical trade fair, MEDICA, this year from 15 to 17 November 2006 in Düsseldorf. “Over 320 exhibitors from 25 nations have registered to take part. A new peak value which once more underlines the range and the international appeal of the COMPAMED product range,“ explains Wilhelm Niedergöker, Managing Director of Messe Düsseldorf.

Niedergöker also emphasises the important roll of COMPAMED as a stimulant of innovation for the final product market. “Anyone who has closely observed the developments of the suppliers market for medical production in recent years in connection with COMPAMED and compared these with the range of final products offered by MEDICA, would quickly see the pace making role of the suppliers in relation to these products and thereby to medical progress in general.”

Thanks to developments in biotechnology, for instance, the production and manipulation of the basic components of life, especially proteins and nucleic acids, has been ever more successful. This growing knowledge of the functioning of such molecules, together with new approaches and solutions from nanotechnology, has created a new forward-looking, inter-disciplinary branch of medicine, for which COMPAMED was virtually predestined, namely, nanomedicine. Nanoscale active ingredients, nanocomposites as dental prosthesis materials or resorbable nanocrystal bone cements have already been successfully introduced to the market. Furthermore, experts expect that with the aid of nanomedicine it will be possible to develop techniques for the early diagnosis of diseases. Many even think that this new approach has the potential to realise the break through to preventive intervention.


Mobile laboratories the size of a shoe box

A step in this direction has been made by the mobile medical laboratories, no bigger than shoe boxes, which have been developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM, Munich). This type of device could soon be found in every medical practice, making blood tests considerably faster and more efficient. The key component of this system is a biochip, which can run up to 100 immunoassays simultaneously, in a diagnosis device for human antibodies. The chip is only the size of a bank card and can be produced as a disposable article. “The serological results are available after a maximum of 2 hours. This will not only spare patients from those exhausting trips, but lead to faster diagnostic findings and therefore to targeted treatment,” enthuses Karl Neumeier, the responsible project leader at the IZM. Mikrogen GmbH from Munich, which manufactures diagnosis systems, will be responsible for bringing the system to the market. Managing director Manfred Motz expects the mini-laboratory to be ready for daily use in two years.

According to a study carried out by the VDI Technologiezentrum GmbH, 54 percent of worldwide nanomedical industrial activities are at present concerned with active ingredient transport systems. In this field, nanoparticles are used to deliver active ingredients directly to sick tissues or to penetrate biological barriers (blood-brain or air-blood barriers). Furthermore, active ingredients can be formulated as nanoparticles in order to control their solubility and, thereby, their bioavailability. A sales volume of approximately five billion dollars is being generated by the products that are already available in this field. The second largest field after the transport of active ingredients is diagnostics, 17 percent of which is related to in vitro and 7 percent related to in vivo systems. Orthopaedic products follow in third place with 19 percent. Particularly important here is the surface modification of implants on a nanomolecular level for the improvement of bioavailability. The remaining three percent is concerned with active ingredients and therapies. “Nanomedicine promises to be a milestone for medical technology. Although the pharmaceutical industry is hesitant to get involved,” says Dr Volker Wagner from the VDI Technologiezentrum. Intensive contacts in the course of COMPAMED 2006 might lead to change of opinion.


Ever more synthetics in medical technology

Still important focuses of attention at COMPAMED are new materials or applications for active ingredients that are already known. Nowadays, approximately one half of the medical products manufactured worldwide are made from a huge range of different synthetics. Higher life expectancy and the growth of home care are leading to an increasing demand for ergonomic, user friendly designs, such as the reduction in weight of wearable devices. There is a continuing trend in miniaturisation and thin-walled designs, which save materials and costs. Altogether, that leads to higher demands on the workability and the mechanical, thermal and chemical resistance of the synthetics used. With this in mind, GE-Plastics (Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands) has developed a whole group of polycarbonates, which meet the considerable demands placed on modern active ingredients with the aid of intelligent copolymer technology: demands including impact resistance, repeatable autoclaving, transparency and biocompatibility.

Even “common synthetics” such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), which achieve the highest sales volumes worldwide, have a challenging niche market in the areas of medicine and pharmacy. With an annual global growth of almost ten percent, this is also the market segment with the most vitality. An example of this development is provided by the blister packs made from PP, which provide for the presentation and protection of the product as well as facilitating easy removal from a mould. Up to now, this type of product has been made from several materials (e.g. synthetic foils, sealing wax and aluminium or paper foils), which raised manufacturing costs and made recycling difficult. A life cycle analysis carried out by the University of Delft verified the advantages of the PP mono-blister system over against conventional packaging structures with regard to recycling, energy consumption and ecological compatibility.


Safer dosage of anaesthetics

“Precision components are essential to medical technology,” says Dr Uwe Kleinkes, a member of the IVAM Microtechnology Network, in reference to another focal point of the COMPAMED exhibition. High-precision components and systems also improve safety. The wrong dosage of anaesthetics, for example, could have serious consequences for the patient concerned. A new flow sensor technology gives additional assistance to doctors in the administration of dosages. A Swiss company, Sensirion, will be presenting the new MEMS sensors at the COMPAMED exhibition. MEMS stands for Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems, which describes the combination of mechanical elements, sensors, actuators and electronic switches on a wafer or chip. The thermal flow-sensor from Sensirion is on a single chip and connected to a precise evaluation circuit and a memory. The delicate signals are thereby amplified and digitalised. The silicon chips are used in the mass flow measurement of liquids and gasses, and also for the administration of dosages of anaesthetics, for monitoring patients’ respiration or for handling liquid samples of the smallest quantities in diagnostics and analyses. The resolution of the system reaches the nanoliter range.

Sensirion will be represented at the collective “Hightech for Medical Device” stand. This business platform was organised by Messe Düsseldorf together with the IVAM, and it places special emphasis on the field of micro-system engineering and nanotechnologies. The product market here will include the individual segments: Nanomedicine, New Materials, Micro technology and Manufacturing. The number of exhibiters at this stand has quadrupled to 24. The exhibition will be complemented by a forum, which will be presenting the entire spectrum of nanomedicine in a total of 25 short presentations over the three days of COMPAMED from 15 to the 17 November 2006. Among other things, biochips, from Philips Research Health Care Devices and Instrumentation, which can detect tiny quantities of substances in bodily fluids. This exhibition also underlines the innovative, forward-looking character of COMPAMED as a trendsetter for the medical engineering industry.

This year COMPAMED will once more occupy its own exhibition hall, 8a, not far from the exhibition train station and the main entrance area (northern entrance).

Out of the 137,000 expert visitors to last year’s overall MEDICA and COMPAMED exhibition, 9000 experts were interested in COMPAMED’s technically very specialised product range.

Further information on COMPAMED 2006 and MEDICA 2006 and on the exhibitors taking part and their products can be found on the internet sites: http://www.compamed.de and http://www.medica.de.