O11 biomedical

 

Premature babies in the incubator, patients with acute lung failure in the intensive care unit or COPD patients at home – they all suffer from the same, potentially fatal condition: hypercapnia, an increased level of CO₂ in the blood. Approximately 400,000 people are affected each year in Germany alone. Hypercapnia is one of the major challenges in intensive care treatment of acute respiratory failure and during prolonged weaning after long-term ventilation, as well as in outpatient treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and it has not yet been adequately solved.

Instead of addressing the problem through the lungs, RESPILIQ™ uses the human gut as a respiratory organ. The human intestine forms a highly effective exchange membrane for CO₂. In the gut, RESPILIQ™ can bind CO₂ from the intestinal fluid and excrete it via naturalis. Administered orally or rectally, RESPILIQ™ thus initiates a life-saving reduction of CO₂ in the blood.

O¹¹ biomedical is an interdisciplinary spin-off from the Institute of Applied Medical Engineering, Department of Biohybrid & Medical Textiles (BioTex) at RWTH Aachen University | Uniklinik RWTH Aachen. The goal of the team of dedicated experts in the fields of biology, medicine and engineering is to revolutionize therapy and significantly improve the survival and, above all, the quality of life of these large groups of patients suffering from hypercapnia.