The company has created a novel microstructured catheter that has been validated to improve outcomes for stroke patients. Its patent-pending platform, called TRAP, or thrombus retrieval aspiration platform, emulates a boa constrictor\u2019s teeth arrangement in its biomimetic design to grab onto blood clots without tearing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CEO \u00c1ngel Enr\u00edquez of Emboa Medical said the TRAP design demonstrated a greater than 200% increase in blockage removal force compared to a traditional catheter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAdditionally, the TRAP catheter showed significant benefits in removing clots on the first attempt in a worst-case neurovascular model,\u201d he said. \u201cIt achieved a 40% success rate compared to 10% for conventional smooth inner diameter catheters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emboa Medical was founded by clinical experts at Goodman Campbell Brain and Spine and NYU Langone Health and medical device researchers at Purdue University\u2019s College of Engineering<\/a>. TRAP was designed by Enr\u00edquez and Hyowon Lee<\/a>, professor in Purdue\u2019s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering<\/a> and director of the Center for Implantable Devices<\/a>. They disclosed TRAP to the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization<\/a>, which submitted a patent application to protect the intellectual property. OTC also issued a license to Emboa Medical to commercialize the IP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enr\u00edquez said Emboa has been diligently working on finalizing the design of the microstructures through physiologically relevant models to further establish differentiation among current catheters in the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have conducted in vitro experiments that quantitatively demonstrate the advantages of TRAP catheters,\u201d he said. \u201cAdditionally, we will conduct an in vivo porcine model study and preliminarily validate TRAP\u2019s safety and effectiveness by end of Q1 2025. The successful completion of this animal model study will lead to more functional and robust TRAP devices that can facilitate the transition to larger-scale verification activities toward regulatory approval.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Another step to bring TRAP to the marketplace is to establish a manufacturing process to integrate microscale structures into the distal tip of catheters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lee received funding from Purdue Innovates Incubator\u2019s Trask Innovation Fund<\/a> and the CTSI Medtech Incubator to conduct his research to develop TRAP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since its launch, Emboa Medical has been awarded more than $150,000 in nondilutive funding through winning pitch competitions such as Medtech Color, Purdue Innovates\u2019 New Venture Challenge<\/a> and Startup Prize: Focus on Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAdditionally, we are a Seedling award recipient for the National Institutes of Health\u2019s Blueprint Medtech program,\u201d Enr\u00edquez said. \u201cWe have received mentorship from medtech industry experts, a consultation with regulatory experts to establish a regulatory pathway and recently conducted an extensive market research study to validate the focus of our TRAP technology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stroke is the second-leading cause of death worldwide; it kills about 140,000 Americans annually. Almost 90% of stroke cases are caused by an obstruction of one of the arteries that supply blood to the brain, known as an ischemic stroke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enr\u00edquez said stroke is an extremely time-sensitive condition that requires swift therapy for a patient\u2019s full functional recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe use of traditional stent retrievers results in higher rates of perforation due to the metal struts interacting with the vessel walls. This causes intracranial hemorrhages at a higher rate than aspiration catheters, which apply suction through a tube. This can be asymptomatic or symptomatic, but the truth is no doctor is comfortable causing damage to a patient\u2019s blood vessels,\u201d Enriquez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThus, aspiration catheters are an attractive tool because they achieve reported faster reperfusion times, lower rates of distal emboli (13.2% vs. 3.4%) and vessel injury (9.3% vs. 1.8%) at lower costs. Yet the aspiration force is dramatically decreased and limited by the smaller vessel diameter. TRAP was designed to address this obstacle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emboa Medical<\/a> has developed a novel blood clot extraction device to address the prevalent issue of stroke, which is the second leading cause of death in the world. Using nature-inspired design, Emboa Medical has developed a novel tool that increases blood clot extraction forces regardless of catheter size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learn more or connect with the team by visiting the Emboa Medical website<\/a>. The team is particularly excited to connect with mentors or people with regulatory and commercialization experience in the Interventional Radiology field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization<\/a> operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university\u2019s academic activities through commercializing, licensing and protecting Purdue intellectual property. In fiscal year 2024, the office reported 145 deals finalized with 224 technologies signed, 466 invention disclosures received, and 290 U.S. and international patents received. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 107,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 58,000 at our main campus in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue\u2019s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap \u2014 including its comprehensive urban expansion, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative \u2014 at https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/president\/strategic-initiatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Medical device startup licenses Purdue University TRAP design that mimics boa constrictor teeth WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. \u2014 Emboa Medical Inc., a medical device startup, has mimicked a snake\u2019s evolutionary advantage to improve the retrieval of blood clots that cause stroke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":13053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[],"department":[],"source":[35],"purdue_today_topic":[],"coauthors":[44],"class_list":["post-13268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prf","source-purdue-research-foundation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13268"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13374,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13268\/revisions\/13374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13268"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=13268"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=13268"},{"taxonomy":"purdue_today_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/purdue_today_topic?post=13268"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Next steps and company milestones<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Emboa_HyowonLee_AngelEnriquez-225x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Worldwide impact of stroke<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
About Emboa Medical<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
About Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
About Purdue University<\/h2>\n\n\n\n