Patent Title:
Methods for manufacturing amino acid mimetic copolymers and use of same
Assignee:
Inventors:
Stephen Pacetti
Patent:
Summary related to Ultrasonic Spray technology used to coat a stent with primer:
The spray apparatus is an ultrasonic atomizer with a gas entrainment stream. A syringe pump is used to supply the coating solution to the ultrasonic nozzle. The composition is atomized by ultrasonic energy and applied to the stent surfaces. A useful nozzle to stent distance is about 20 mm to about 40 mm at an ultrasonic power of about one watt to about two watts. During the process of applying the composition, the stent is optionally rotated about its longitudinal axis, at a speed of 100 to about 600 rpm, for example, about 400 rpm. The stent is also linearly moved along the same axis during the application.
The stent coating primer solution is applied to a 15 mm Triplex, N stent (available from Abbott Vascular Corporation) in a series of 20-second passes, to deposit, for example, 20 μg of coating per spray pass. Between the spray passes, the stent is allowed to dry for about 10 seconds to about 30 seconds at ambient temperature. Four spray passes can be applied, followed by baking the primer layer at about 80° C. for about 1 hour. As a result, a primer layer can be formed having a solids content of about 80 μg. For purposes of this invention, “Solids” means the amount of the dry residue deposited on the stent after all volatile organic compounds (e.g., the solvent) have been removed.
