CHICAGO (National Plastics Exhibition), June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Dendritic Nanotechnologies Inc. (DNT), a technology company that develops advanced dendritic polymers used to produce commercial products, today announced that Priostar(TM) dendrimers are available on a limited basis to the commercial sector. This new product line of nanoscale building blocks represents a year-long effort by DNT to drive down the manufacturing costs associated with nanotechnology, and to refine the technology for mass-market commercialization.
DNT is exhibiting in Booth 584 at this year’s National Plastics Exhibition to introduce Priostar to the plastics community and to demonstrate how nanotechnology can be harnessed by materials manufacturers as they address new market opportunities.
“The National Plastics Exhibition comes at a perfect time for DNT as we are ramping up our production on Priostar,” said Ryan Hayes, DNT’s director of business development. “We are eager to work with scientists in the industrial sector who are wrestling with complex formulation and manufacturing problems. We believe we can solve many of these with our Priostar dendrimers and provide them with alternatives to ground-down nanoparticles.”
Priostar dendrimers offer new opportunities to plastics manufacturers
Priostar dendrimers represent the synergistic combination of polymers with nanotechnology. They are a part of the fourth class of polymer architectures defined as dendritic polymers. The nanoscale size and dendritic (or highly branched) nature of these precision polymeric nanostructures provide new properties and reactivity that has been known at the research level for a number of years, but lacked an affordable dendrimer to commercialize.
In addition to reduced cost, the new dendrimer family has added benefits such as improved thermal and hydrolytic stability. These are important considerations for handling, shelf-life, shipping, and final product stability. Initially, Priostar dendrimers could be used as high-performance additives to address polymer manufacturers’ need for new technologies that can reduce curing times, enable them to process additives into a new formulations, or improve strength and durability.
“These improvements should lead to the evaluation of dendrimers for applications in which dendrimers were previously dismissed-even though they witnessed unique property enhancements,” stated Dr. Robert Berry, CEO of DNT. “In addition, Priostar offers the added benefit of new patent life which provides our business partners an opportunity to protect their market sectors. We are aiming to establish a limited number of business partnerships for commercial research that could lead to direct commercialization.”
About Priostar Dendrimers
The Priostar family of dendrimers share and improve upon the physical properties of the widely researched STARBURST(TM) PAMAM dendrimers, which were invented by Dr. Donald Tomalia, DNT’s president and chief technology officer. The size and shape of a dendrimer are determined by shells (known as generations) grown around a core structure, while the reactivity of the dendrimer is determined by its surface chemical functionality, together with size and shape. The ability to attach chemical compounds to the surface or to encapsulate them within the interior of the dendrimer have made STARBURST dendrimers attractive to pharmaceutical, biotechnology and materials companies.
The Priostar family of dendrimers serves as a major nanostructure platform that will have broad commercial application. These dendrimers will find value in the industrial sector as they will help develop new products and improve existing technologies for surface coatings, sensors, catalysts, nanofabrication, solid state lighting, surfactants, binders, antimicrobials, lotions, cosmetics, pigments, dyes, ion exchange media, and ultrafiltration.
About DNT
DENDRITIC NANOTECHNOLOGIES INC. (DNT) develops dendrimer structures that assist business partners in producing commercial products -- where dendrimers are the added value differentiator. DNT was incorporated in 2003, is a U.S. company with 16 employees, and is located in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. DNT’s technology development is directed by Donald A. Tomalia, Ph.D., President and Chief Technical Officer. Dr. Tomalia is the inventor of dendrimers and has led numerous commercial developments during a 25-year management and senior scientist career with The Dow Chemical Company.
Dendrimers are nanostructures with specific, precise and predictable physical properties that make them especially useful for pharmaceuticals, medical imaging, electronics, materials, and the mass commercial markets. DNT has a broad and comprehensive IP portfolio that comprises over 200 patents in 41 patent families -- a unique level of IP concentration among nanotechnology companies -- and has existing licensing agreements with established revenue streams for dendrimer technology. See http://www.dnanotech.com.
Starpharma is an equity holder in DNT and is focused on the development and application of dendrimer nanotechnologies as drugs against major diseases. Starpharma’s lead dendrimer product, VivaGel(TM) is currently in U.S. FDA Phase II human clinical trials. VivaGel is a topical microbicide gel product that has been developed for women as a preventative against the sexual transmission of HIV.
NOTE: Priostar and STARBURST are trademarks of Dendritic Nanotechnologies Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are held by their respective owners.
Dendritic Nanotechnologies Inc.
CONTACT: Tim Cox of Zing Public Relations, +1-650-369-7784, or cell,+1-650-888-6116 cell, or tim@zingpr.com, for Dendritic NanotechnologiesInc.
Web site: http://www.dnanotech.com//
