Ten Years’ Strive for Eminence and Splendor through Difficulties and Hardships
Micro-Tech (Nanjing) Co., Ltd. is Honored to Win the Second National Award for Progress in Science and Technology
At the beginning of the New Year 2012, Micro-Tech (Nanjing) Co., Ltd. ushered excellent news that the latest scientific and technological achievement gained jointly by our company and Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University–“Research & Development and Application of the Novel Stent of the Digestive System” was honored with the National Second Prize for Progress in Science and Technology! The honor with the National Prize in Science and Technology is a great event in the scientific community of our country, and is also a high-level assessment for the capability of domestic enterprises’ scientific and technological innovation. Among the achievements of 43 projects in Jiangsu Province and the 21 scientific & technological projects in Nanjing, the company is the only one that wins the National Prize for Progress in Science and Technology for the product of medical device this year, marking the company reaching a new step in independent research & development of the gastrointestinal stent. It is a positive affirmation on the Weichuang Company’s spirit of consistently adhering to making bold innovations and continuous improvements, and is a fruitful achievement obtained by the company’s laying stress on research and development, and technological innovations, and is also an important presentation that our country’s key indicators for gastrointestinal medical stent have reached the leading level in the world.
The company has pushed forward three grades and updates of gastrointestinal stent in our country throughout its 12 years’ development: First, realization of individualized program customization for the production of stent; secondly, introduction of the production of gastrointestinal stent into the GMP management mode, thus enhancing the industry level; and thirdly, implementation of three significant technological innovations of gastrointestinal stent.
The first-generation stents were mainly imported from foreign countries. Though they solved the difficult problem of stent stenosis and occlusion in patients with advanced tumor, and improved their quality of life, however, there were no stent systems suitable for placement under endoscopy, and the doctors could not carry out visualized operation. Meanwhile, due to dependence on import, the stent design could not match with individualized treatment, and could not overcome the problem of stent occlusion due to continued tumor growth after stent placement. More seriously, the margin structure of stent was designed as a dotted or linear shape, and the stent port might readily tumble in the esophageal wall, leading to high incidences of complications such as hemorrhages or perforation; therefore, the clinical applications of the stents were limited to a large extent.
As is known to all, digestive tract obstruction is one of the primary causes leading to death of patients with advanced malignant gastrointestinal tumor; gastrointestinal tumors are of high incidence in our country, and the morbidity rate of esophageal carcinoma accounts for a half in the world. As gastrointestinal tumors are frequently diagnosed in their late stages, only approximately 20% of patients are eligible for surgical resection of tumors, and thus the great majority of patients need to be managed by stent placement. To overcome the defects of multiple complications, great implantation difficulty, and patients’ heavy medical costs, etc., by the first-generation stents, our company spent nearly ten years organizing a large number of scientific research personnel to go down to the clinical hospitals and to the forefront of production, combining effectively clinical practices and production, carrying out persistent innovations in designing the margin points and line contact of the stent as surface contact, and thus successfully developing the second-generation stent by designing the margin structure as ball-with-cup-rim type margin and double-ball-mouth margin, based on different physiological sites and individualized differences related with disorders. The port of the novel stent may be in compliance with esophageal peristalsis, and clinical applications have demonstrated that this design is not predisposed to hemorrhage, perforation, and stimulative hyperplasia, but can increase patients’ tolerance, and thus solving the worldwide problem of great operation difficulty and high complication incidence of esophageal stent. To facilitate surgeons’ precise localization and visualized operation, the company has exclusively designed the stent system and retrievable device that may be released via endoscope channel; in this way, the esophageal stent technology becomes a safe, simple, and efficient technology, and the treatment means through mini-invasive stent placement becomes the first choice (instead of surgical treatment) in treatment of esophageal obstruction. The second-generation esophageal stent may address a complicated condition in a safe, simple, visualized, and individualized way, thus pushing forward promotion and generalization of gastrointestinal stent. Meanwhile, the technological progress has also greatly decreased the selling price of stent. Our company’s gastrointestinal stents in a price of 1/5 of the imported product rapidly occupy the domestic market, and the export share of such stents has also increased in a geometrical ratio, greatly reducing the burdens of the masses of patients.
Although significant technological breakthroughs have been made, the first- and second-generation stents could only realize palliative treatment. If the stent was to be used as a carrier bearing drugs (chemotherapy drug or isotope, etc.), could it solve obstruction and meanwhile realize treatment of tumor? Our company commenced an exploration of novel treatment mode as well. Through three years’ efforts, and after a number of design changes, isotope particles and esophageal stent were finally integrated into one to increase clinical effects, which became the first treatment system with the values of clinical application both at home and abroad that integrated opening up lumen and tumor treatment into one; it started the third-generation multi-functional stents, marking that our country is taking the lead in the research and development field of esophageal stent. The birth of the third-generation stents expanded the treatment category of stent, and meanwhile by using point-to-point local specific therapy, decreased general toxic and side effects of anti-cancer drugs, and reduced all-sidedly patients’ sufferings and burdens.
Our company has carried out continuous technological innovations, pushed through limitations and restricted areas in applications of esophageal stents, expanded the indication of gastrointestinal stent’s application, provided multiplayer, individualized solutions, significantly increased the treatment level of gastrointestinal obstruction, enriched the technology and theory of gastrointestinal stent therapy, and enhanced our country’s international status in gastrointestinal stent research & development and treatment. This time, the honor with the National Second Prize for Progress in Science and Technology has greatly encouraged all employees of our company. Taking it as a new starting point, we shall increase input in research and development, break the monopoly of foreign countries in new technological fields, and tap in the international market with the new made-in-China image, to push forward healthy development of domesticated medical devices!
