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APAC drug delivery devices market to reach $5.4 billion in 2023.

Mergermarket released Global Pharma, Medical & Biotech trend report for Q3 2017.

Global BioLife develops breakthrough modified sugar.

Breakthrough noodle formula with low-glycemic score of 38.

Aphria ships first medical cannabis oil to Australia’s Medlab for clinical trial.

Envirotainer doubles e-technology capacity across Asia.

Genesis CancerCare Queensland is first in Asia-Pacific to use Elekta’s Venezia Brachytherapy Applicator.

iX Biopharma secures European patent for WaferiX drug delivery technology.

Shingrix approved in the US for prevention of shingles in adults aged 50 and over.

First three-monthly long-acting treatment for schizophrenia patients in Singapore.

China, Brazil and Russia named by healthcare companies as riskiest markets for compliance and regulation.

New survey shows patients in Asia Pacific fail to recognize their fragility fracture is due to osteoporosis.

Healthcare community join forces to fight growing epidemic of fragility fractures caused by osteoporosis.

A mechanical mock of the cardiovascular system was used to simulate different conditions of ventricular-arterial mechanical matching. Four ventricles and four aortas with different elastances were set up, and all possible connection combinations tested by sampling ventricular and aortic pressures and flows. The mechanical energy produced by the simulated ventricles and the amount transferred to the aorta in the different connection conditions were calculated. The results demonstrate a clear dependence between the mechanical work production of the ventricles and the ventricular elastance (slope of the end-systolic pressure–volume relation) (from 20.42 ± 0.02 mJ/beat to 12.10 ± 0.02 mJ/beat), and an efficiency of energy transfer to the aorta strongly dependent on ventricular-aortic mechanical matching (from 56% to 20.7%). These results show that, even in optimal simulated conditions, only 56% of the energy produced is transferred to the load; and highlight the important role of mechanical aspects in conditions of very limited cardiovascular performance (i.e. final stages of heart failure), where energy transfer efficiency may be as low as 20.7%. This evidence emphasizes that the mechanical aspects must also be entertained in the evolution of complex cardiovascular pathologies, evaluating the possibility of combining mechanical and pharmaceutical interventions.

The thrombus is the inappropriate activation of hemostasis in vascular system. In this paper, biomechanical factors affecting the behaviors of artery with intraluminal thrombus were studies. Results indicated that heart rate and blood viscosity had strong impact on the compliance of the stenosis artery and flow pattern. The alteration in blood viscosity had stronger influence than cardiac cycle on the volume change of the fluid region surrounded by thrombus. von Mises stress measured at the thinnest region of the plaque had the largest time-averaged value. The alteration of these parameters could potentially lead to stress redistribution at intraluminal thrombus.

Understanding alveolar mechanics is important for preventing the possible lung injuries during mechanical ventilation. Alveolar clusters with smaller size are found having lower compliance in two-dimensional studies. But the influence of alveolar shape on compliance is unclear. In order to investigate how alveolar morphology affects their behavior, we tracked subpleural alveoli of isolated mouse lungs during quasi-static ventilation using two- and three-dimensional imaging techniques. Results showed that alveolar clusters with smaller size and more spherical shape had lower compliance. There was a better correlation of sphericity rather than circularity with alveolar compliance. The compliance of clusters with great shape change was larger than that with relatively slight shape change. These findings suggest the contribution of lung heterogeneous expansion to lung injuries associated with mechanical ventilation.

Cardiovascular diseases like atherosclerosis, peripheral arterial disease, coronary heart disease, etc. are dangerous and hence early detection of such diseases is important in the field of medical sciences. The existing methods used for diagnosing diseases are time-consuming and highly expensive. On the other hand, experimentation with Cardiovascular System (CVS) for the analysis and decision making for treatment is unsafe and hence it is important to develop an accurate CVS model. It is observed from the existing integer order cardiovascular models that the viscoelastic property of four chambers is not taken into consideration. To accommodate these properties, this paper proposes a fractional order model by introducing fractionality to the dynamical equation of CVS. Further, an optimization method is presented to obtain the fractionality of different chambers by minimizing the integral square error between clinical data of healthy human and model output using Cuckoo search, Firefly and Accelerated particle swarm algorithms. The results indicate that fractional models are better than integer order CVS models and specifically, the Firefly algorithm provides a better fractional model than the models obtained from other algorithms. Further, the best model obtained using firefly algorithm is considered for simulating the diseases (i) increased arterial stiffness and (ii) atherosclerosis.

Carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) is used as an indicator of atherosclerosis and a risk predictor for stroke and cardiovascular diseases. In macroscopic view, the atherosclerotic process constitutes changes in structure and mechanical function of vessels. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between carotid IMT and elastic property, or compliance, of the vessel.

Eighteen patients (10 males, 8 females, mean age: 65.5+/−12.2) who received coronary angiography due to coronary artery disease (CAD) were enrolled in this study. The IMT was measured at left carotid artery 5 cm below bifurcation. The blood pressure was measured through a catheter placed in aortic arch and continuous pressure change was recorded simultaneously during performing of carotid sonography. A sequence of cross section images of carotid sonogram was recorded. An image analysis algorithm is developed for serial luminal area measurements. Then the estimation of compliance was computed according to Windkessel model.

Regression analysis shows negative correlation (r=−0.704) between IMT and vascular compliance. The results correlate the elastic property and structural change of carotid artery during the process of atherosclerosis. This finding further support that IMT is a good parameter for evaluation of the severity of atherosclerosis.

Traditional arterial tonometry permits noninvasive and continuous recording of the arterial pressure waveform, by applanating a superficial artery supported by a bone. In the paper, we present an arterial tonometer to simultaneously register the blood pressure waveform and the arterial time-varying volume. The tonometer consisted mainly of a chamber filled with a conductive fluid, a flexible diphragm in touch with an artery, and a pressure sensor used to detect the underlying arterial pressure. In addition, four electrodes were in parallel diposed in the chamber, two of them were triggered with a constant-current source, and the voltage difference between the other two inner electrodes was assocated with the amount of change in the arterial volume. The pressure calibration curve performed with a mercury sphygmomanometer showed a fairly linear relationship (r = 0.998) between the tonometer's chamber pressure and the voltage output of the pressure-sensing circuit. The volume calibration was carried out with vessel-like cylinders of various diameters and a linear relationship (r = 0.884) of the change in vessel volume to the voltage output of the volume-sensing circuit was obtained. Clinical testing results revealed that the noninvasive blood pressure measurement with the tonometer was appreciably consistent with the invasive measurement with the catheter-tipped pressure transducer. In summary, the arterial applanation tonometer developed may be used to reliably determine the full arterial blood pressure waveform and the change in the arterial volume, and to make the wall compliance assessment of a superficial artery possible.

The objective of this study is to determine the pressure-dependent compliance of human radial artery in young subjects. The arterial blood pressure and the change in vessel volume of the radial artery in ten normotensive volunteers were simultaneously measured with an arterial tonometer. The arterial global compliance was calculated as the division of change in vessel volume by the difference between the systolic and the diastolic blood pressures. The arterial global compliance measured from the ten young volunteers was found to be 4.645 ± 2.739 uL/mmHg. When the arterial pressure-volume relation was assumed to be of natural logarithm, a correlation coefficient of 0.996 was yielded by curve-fit methods. Similarly, when the arterial compliance-pressure relation was fit in a natural logarithmic form, a correlation coefficient of 0.998 was obtained. In conclusion, the arterial vessel volume varies with the arterial blood pressure logarithmicly and positively, whereas a logarithmic and negative relation between the arterial global compliance and arterial blood pressure is present in human radial arteries. Thus, it is for all time necessary to take the pressure level into account if we want to compare compliance values obtained from distinct physiological situations.

The study presents a method to achieve a subject-ventilator synchronic pressure supply for a non-invasive ventilator (NIV) used for obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), solely through controlling the blower instead of using expiratory relief valves. The controller used air flow signal to distinguish inspiratory and expiratory phases, and used a fast auto-forecast (AF) algorithm to predict the current inspiratory duration based on respiration periods distinguished previously. Then in a patient's late inspiration the mechanical expiratory state was triggered to release pressure in advance. Afterward, when the beginning of a patient's actual expiration was detected, a timer was used to trigger the end-expiratory state. As the index of patient-ventilator synchrony, subject's chest movement was detected by electrical impedance signal in experiments. The experimental results indicated that the previous state transition based on the prediction of inspiratory duration can eliminate the pressure overshoot spike, and then avoid excessive expiratory pressure to subjects. The fast auto-forecast with end expiratory positive airway pressure (AF-EEPAP) controlling strategy presented in this paper provided a mild pressure curve, which is consistent with the subject's respiratory physiology, and thus improved respiratory synchrony between subject and ventilator.

The energetic effects of knee locking and addition of linear elastic members to different joints of a seven-link fully actuated planner bipedal robot were studied. The focus was on the reduction of energy consumption during walking. An impactless walking gait was studied and the energetic cost of walking was determined without joint stiffness and knee locking as a baseline for comparison. The gait trajectory was then optimized by adding spring to different joints, energetic cost of walk was then calculated at different walking speeds. Support knee was then mechanically locked and gait was optimized to find the walking cost. The energetic cost of walking determined for the above two cases was then compared to the baseline cost. It was observed that addition of torsional springs at both hips can reduce the walking cost up to 38%, support hip up to 40% with spring stiffness as an optimization parameter for both cases while mechanically locking the support knee can reduce the cost of walking up to 92% at slow walking speeds with gait and knee locking angle optimized.

We propose a mechanical design for the knee joints of a planar bipedal robot. Each knee joint is composed of cross four-bar with springs. The dynamic model of a planar bipedal robot with cross four-bar knees and a parametric optimization problem are presented to produce a set of optimal reference trajectories. We use these trajectories to compare the performance of the bipedal robot with respect to different physical characteristics of the knee joints.