From Ion Channels comes a new approach for treating Erectile Dysfunction. Currently, anyone taking nitrates for chest pain is not a candidate for any of the PDE5 inhibitors such as Viagra. Taking the two in combination can cause a sudden drop in blood pressure leading to coma and possibly death.

As many of us on Plavix know, any surgery can be risky as often the many surgeries require Plavix to be discontinued for up to 7 days prior to the scheduled procedure. This can lead to in-stent thrombosis, late stage in-stent thrombosis, and more. For more details visit here.

Many cardiologists are now requiring patients with drug-eluting stents to be on a combination therapy of Plavix and Aspirin for at least a year, and some are advocating lifetime combination therapy. Stopping Plavix too soon can lead to in-stent restenosis and your cardiologist should always be consulted prior to stopping either Plavix or Aspirin. What this means for those suffering from ED is that one approach - the implantation of a prosthetic device, can be risky. So what is a heart patient suffering from ED to do?

Ion channel is working on a solution. From their website:

Ion Channel’s report of the phase I trials results for gene transfer for the indication of erectile dysfunction was print published in Human Gene Therapy.

December 21, 2006
Ion Channel’s report of the phase I trials results for gene transfer for the indication of erectile dysfunction was print published in Human Gene Therapy. The article was accepted in November and rapidly published the next month and is the first paper in the issue (that has figure 7) of the paper on the front cover of the journal. The paper is preceded by two editorials each highly complementary of the paper…

Also, from Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Dec. 4, 2006) — The first human trial of gene transfer therapy for erectile dysfunction (ED) indicates that gene therapy that lasts for months and eliminates the patient’s need for on-demand drugs (such as Viagra and Cialis), could become the future treatment of choice for this common problem, according to a paper in the most recent issue of Human Gene Therapy.

Read more…

Humacyte. Humacyte’s core technology is the engineering of human-based tissue scaffolds that can be shaped into tubes, sheets, or particulate conformations and can be applied to many specific applications. From their website:

The broadest potential market for Humacyte’s technology is the coronary artery bypass (CABG) market. CABG patients who currently must undergo harvest of saphenous vein or mammary artery to provide bypass vessels could forego these risky procedures, if an alternative arterial graft was readily available. Humacyte’s technology would decrease complications, shorten operating time and hospital stay, and thereby decrease costs as well as patient morbidity. The most easily penetrated segment of this market would be those patients requiring bypass but possessing no suitable vein or artery of their own. In the US alone, 100,000 patients do not undergo needed CABG surgery because of lack of conduit. Since these patients have no other effective treatment option, Humacyte’s product will be well suited to treat them.