HeMo Bioengineering, a Singapore-based medical device company with a focus on treating stroke patients, has announced that its Afentta intracranial thrombectomy aspiration catheter—a product developed by the company’s branch in China—has received pre-market approval from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), becoming the first approved domestic product of its kind in China.

Developed on novel, proprietary technologies, the Afentta aspiration catheter offers an efficacious, fast and safe direct aspiration treatment option for acute ischaemic stroke thrombectomy, and has demonstrated lower post-stroke treatment disability rates and disease burden in clinical studies, according to a HeMo Bioengineering press release.

Miao Zhongrong, professor of interventional neuroradiology, neurosurgery, and neurology, and head of the Department of Interventional Neuroradiology, at Beijing Tiantan Hospital (Capital Medical University, Beijing, China), said: “Afentta has demonstrated shorter procedure times, higher recanalisation rates, lower disability rates and lower incidence of arterial dissection, presenting a more efficacious, faster and safer treatment option in interventional thrombectomy.”

Direct aspiration for acute ischaemic stroke can achieve efficacious recanalisation of neurovascular arteries, achieve timely reperfusion and improve prognosis, and has been globally recommended as a treatment approach, HeMo Bioengineering stated. The Afentta intracranial thrombectomy aspiration catheter is the company’s flagship product and has now achieved the milestone of becoming China’s first domestically produced aspiration catheter system.

Jack Wang, HeMo Bioengineering’s founder and chief technology officer, commented: “HeMo Bioengineering is committed to bringing together ‘smart’ resources to serve China’s needs in the neurovascular interventional space. With our professional management team of industry veterans and our diversified and global research and education resources, we are well-positioned to continue delivering world-leading, reliable and innovative medical devices.”

HeMo Bioengineering has entered into technology partnerships with US-based Imperative Care and Tsinghua University’s Department of Chemical Engineering, and has embarked on clinical trial collaborations with Beijing Tiantan Hospital too. The Singapore-based company has also obtained patent protections for the proprietary technologies associated with its aspiration catheter system, and claimed that, moving forward, it is “committed to accelerating the rapid development of China and Asia-Pacific markets’ interventional domain”.