Pakistan’s first: NUST begins production of cardiac stents

ISLAMABAD: In a landmark achievement, the National University of Science & Technology (NUST) has started producing cardiac stents, a first such development in country’s medial industry that will also reduce burden from poor patients.

The Medical Devices Development Centre (MDDC) led by Dr Murtaza Najabat Ali at NUST School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering successfully developed the devices for the first time in Pakistan.

With funds from Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) to enable production of cardiac stents (both bare-metal and drug-eluted) and angioplasty balloon catheters, this is the first time that a medical school is producing devices to treat narrow or weak arteries in Pakistan.

Along with this, NUST-MDDC is seeking to establish a link between the industry and academia in order to develop the ignored medical devices industry.

“NUST-MDDC also plans to look into serial production and commercialization of both its products to ensure affordable angioplasty kits for general public”, said an official.

Adding to it, he said, “Approximately 450 units of the indigenously developed savior (bare-metal) stents have been successfully implanted in patients till date at Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC) and Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC) at almost one sixth the price of imported stents available in the market.”

“We need to use this resource to develop new devices, medical implants and industrial systems, which we are currently importing at an exorbitant cost,” said official.