SAN DIEGO, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Sangart, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing oxygen transport agents, today announced the publication of results from its Phase II clinical trial of Hemospan(R) in patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery.
The manuscript entitled "A Multicenter Clinical Study of the Safety and Activity of Maleimide-Polyethylene Glycol-modified Hemoglobin (Hemospan(R)) in Patients Undergoing Major Orthopedic Surgery" is published in the December 2006 issue of The Journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists - Anesthesiology (Olofsson, Ahl, Johansson, Larsson, Nellgard, Ponzer, Fagrell, Przybelski, Keipert, N. Winslow, R. Winslow; Anesthesiology 2006 105:1153-63).
The Phase II clinical trial referenced in the article studied 90 patients undergoing hip arthroplasty procedures at six clinical trial sites in Sweden. As previously reported by Sangart, Hemospan(R) was found to be well tolerated in the study group with no serious adverse events considered to be related to the product.
Hemospan(R) is a hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier designed to serve as an alternative to blood transfusions. A key property of Hemospan(R) is its high oxygen affinity which results in targeted oxygen delivery to tissues at risk of oxygen deprivation.
About Sangart
Sangart is a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercialization of medical products designed for use as alternatives to blood transfusions.
Dr. Robert Winslow, a world-renowned authority in the field of oxygen transport, founded Sangart in 1998. In the two decades prior to founding Sangart, Dr. Winslow and his colleagues studied and defined mechanisms of oxygen transport by cell-free hemoglobin solutions, funded by competitive grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. The counterintuitive discoveries by Dr. Winslow's group on the effective action of oxygen transport agents have been patented and published in numerous scientific articles. From this experience, Sangart's lead product, Hemospan(R), was designed using unique polyethylene glycol conjugation to create a hemoglobin-based product that is intended to serve as an alternative to donated blood.
The key breakthroughs in the development of Hemospan(R) were the understanding of the mechanisms of vasoconstriction caused by cell-free hemoglobin and the development of simplified production methods that are designed to make the final product commercially viable. These breakthroughs laid the groundwork for Sangart's business concept of developing cost- effective oxygen carriers that can be used to treat or prevent hypotension in lieu of transfused red blood cells during episodes of temporary blood loss, such as surgery or trauma.
Sangart's corporate headquarters are in San Diego, California. To learn more about Sangart, please visit the company's website at www.sangart.com.
Media Contact: Gregory Tiberend Richard Lewis Communications, Inc. 212-827-0020 gtiberend@rlcinc.com
Sangart, Inc.CONTACT: Media, Gregory Tiberend of Richard Lewis Communications, Inc.,+1-212-827-0020, gtiberend@rlcinc.com, for Sangart, Inc.
Web site: http://www.sangart.com/
