Blood nanofiltration: after four years...
Yesterday, a solemn ceremony of laying the first stone in the construction of the BETA research and production complex for the production of medical equipment took place in Dubna near Moscow. The new company will produce unique medical equipment for cascade filtration of blood plasma and related technologies for the treatment of a wide range of diseases by purifying blood from harmful substances and viruses. Modern high-tech production is being created as part of a project implemented by Trackpor Technology in partnership with RUSNANO. At the moment, the project has no analogues in Russia in terms of scale and technical equipment. Top managers of RUSNANO and the management of Trackpor Technology took part in the solemn ceremony of the start of construction.
Currently, the Supervisory Board of RUSNANO Corporation has approved 81 projects totaling 256.5 billion rubles, including investments of RUSNANO in the amount of 115.5 billion rubles. On the corporation's website, you can get full information about RUSNANO's activities and apply for project financing.
Trackpor Technology CJSC is a leading Russian manufacturer of high–tech medical equipment for plasmapheresis (the figure shows the Hemophenix plasmapheresis device).
The company manufactures and supplies these products to medical institutions of the Ministry of Health and Social Development, as well as to departmental and commercial medical institutions.
The Trackpor Technology Holding Company was established in 1998 to solve the complex task of organizing the production of medical equipment, track membranes and a wide range of filtration elements based on membrane technologies.
The founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Concor Group of Companies, which includes Trackpor Technology, is Vladimir Mikhailovich Kononov.
The project to create the BETA production complex was approved in November 2008. According to it, the planned volume of production will be reached by 2013. The volume of investments in the project will amount to 1.29 billion rubles
01.07.2010
??.??.2013
– The relevance and social significance of the project are beyond doubt, – says Deputy Director General of RUSNANO Andrey Malyshev. – The uniqueness of the project lies in the fact that it is located at the junction of several high-tech areas at once: medicine, nuclear physics and instrumentation.
– The introduction of medical nanotechnology into wide practice is a matter of the very near future, – said Vladimir Kononov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Trackpor Technology CJSC. – The implementation of an innovative project to create a new generation of medical equipment capable of producing nanofiltration of blood plasma components – up to individual protein molecules – will solve a number of acute problems that stand in the way of the formation of an innovative medical care system on a national scale.
Over the past year since the beginning of the project, a huge amount of work has been done. A new device for cascade membrane plasmapheresis has already been created and is being tested. 36 design and production enterprises are connected to the creation of the complex. Today, the amount of signed contracts is 375 million rubles, while the total amount of investments is 1.29 billion rubles. Serial production of unique medical equipment will begin in 2013, and a year later, BETA will reach the design capacity of production of devices and plasmapheresis filters for 800 thousand cascade plasmapheresis procedures per year.
The technology of production of track nanofilters and devices for the procedure has no analogues in the world. Japan produces expensive fiber filters. The specialists of the company "TRACKPOR-TECHNOLOGY" in collaboration with scientists of the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research have developed track membranes for cascade filtration of blood with a pore diameter from 20 to 100 nanometers. Such dimensions are obtained by bombarding the polymer with inert gas ions accelerated on a cyclotron. NPC BETA will be equipped with the latest accelerator complex. Traces left by ions in the material (tracks) are fixed using ultraviolet irradiation and special chemical etching.
Track membrane in a roll and under an electron microscope
Cascade filtration, unlike the usual blood purification procedure, allows you to selectively remove harmful substances and viruses from the blood, while returning the purified plasma back into the blood. Nanofilters will be used for the treatment and prevention of many diseases, but primarily in the fight against atherosclerosis, which causes myocardial infarction, stroke. Doctors consider atherosclerosis to be the problem of the century, because according to the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation, severe cardiovascular diseases are the cause of death most often (57% of the total mortality of the population).
The technology developed by Russian scientists will make one of the most expensive medical procedures in the world – cascade filtration of blood plasma – accessible to most Russians. Today, such a procedure is performed on Japanese equipment in only a few clinics. The cost of blood purification by cascade filtration is about 50 thousand rubles. The introduction of domestic technology will reduce the cost of treatment by 10 (!) times.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of the RUSNANO press center
02.07.2010