Beijing, China – From April 20 to April 23, MicroPort NeuroTech (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. ("MicroPort® NeuroTech") attended the 14th China Forum of Cerebrovascular Diseases ("CFCVD") held in Beijing. The CFCVD is one of the most premier academic events in China's cerebrovascular diseases field, covering neurology, surgical treatment and interventional treatment of cerebrovascular diseases. During this year's CFCVD, the First Innovation Competition of China Intracranial Aneurysm Project ("CIAP") was held and MicroPort® NeuroTech won the first place in the "Product R&D and Achievement Transformation" Group.
The CIAP is a large-scale project of prevention and treatment of patients with intracranial aneurysm. Intracranial aneurysm has high prevalence and leads to high disability and death rate once it ruptures. The CIAP Innovation Competition aims to dive into the disease and find out effective treatments through comparing innovations in three aspects related with intracranial aneurysm including treatment technology, clinical and fundamental research, and product development and achievement transformation. The competition consists of preliminaries and a final. MicroPort® NeuroTech signed up for the competition with the report "the Story of WILLIS® - Medico Engineering Cooperation in the Development of China's Original High-end Neurovascular Interventional Device," showing how the R&D staff and experts jointly worked during the development of the product.
WILLIS® Intracranial Stent Graft System ("WILLIS®"), jointly developed by MicroPort® and Professor Minghua Li of Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital, is the first stent graft system indicated for the treatment of intracranial aneurysms that has gained market approval in China. It is also the first medical device in China to achieve the concept of parent artery reconstruction. Professor Minghua Li proposed the innovative idea of using stent graft to tackle the reoccurrence of large aneurysms. Based on his idea, MicroPort® NeuroTech worked on the design, the material, and the technology of the stent. After ten years' effort following strict third-party inspections and innovative clinical trials, MicroPort® NeuroTech successfully developed WILLIS® and launched it to the market. During the competition, judges spoke highly of WILLIS®'s excellent performance. Professor Chuanzhi Duan of Zhujiang Hospital of Southern Medical University said: "As a high-end neurovascular interventional device with independent property right in China, WILLIS® is the pioneer in several aspects. The product is easy to handle and provides a solution to the treatment of complex aneurysms such as blood blister-like aneurysm, large aneurysm, and traumatic aneurysm." In addition, Professor Duan highly recognized the post-market clinical work of WILLIS®. With the report "the Story of WILLIS®" MicroPort® NeuroTech won the first place in the Group of "Product R&D and Achievement Transformation" and the second place in the whole competition.
WILLIS® is composed of stent-graft and delivery system. The stent-graft consists of cobalt-based alloy stent and PTFE membrane, and with the idea of the parent artery reconstruction it can achieve complete isolation and occlusion of the intracranial aneurysm, keep the parent artery open, and lead to recovery in hemodynamics of the lesion area in order to realize vascular reconstruction so as to attain the effect of treating aneurysm. Compared with the traditional coil embolization treatment, the procedure of vascular reconstruction using WILLIS® features small occupied effect, reduced risk of reoccurrence, and lower treatment cost, as it effectively shunts the blood flow and keeps it off of the aneurysm wall, which leads to thrombosis in the Intracranial aneurysm. Patients suffering from wide-necked or giant aneurysms, pseudoaneurysms, or even ruptured aneurysms can therefore receive better treatment effect with WILLIS®. In 2014, WILLIS® was awarded "Shanghai Innovative Product" by Shanghai Municipal Committee of Economy and Informatization, Shanghai Municipal Finance Bureau and Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration. In the same year, a research project based on the clinical application of WILLIS® was granted the second-class award of Science and Technology Achievements of the Year 2014. The project titled "Research and Clinical Application of Noninvasive Imaging and Minimally Invasive Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysm and its Related Vascular" was carried out mainly by Professor Minghua Li of Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital, and Zhiyong Xie, President of MicroPort® NeuroTech. Zhiyong Xie said: "This award signifies the judges' recognition in MicroPort® NeuroTech's R&D concept of medico engineering cooperation. MicroPort® NeuroTech will continue to innovate and provide more high-end, independently developed neurovascular products to serve more patients."