AlchiMedics presents its CD31-mimetic coating, SP1072, at TCT 2026. TCT is the annual meeting of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation and one of the world’s leading interventional cardiovascular conferences. On Tuesday 3 November, Christophe Bureau, Ph.D., Founder & CEO, presents an accepted scientific abstract on a simple idea with large consequences: what if the blood could no longer tell that an implant is there? The end goal: improving the survival and quality of life of patients suffering from heart and vascular disease.
Our presentation
Every blood-contacting device shares one clinical problem: its surface is read as a foreign body. Platelets activate within milliseconds of contact and set off a thrombo-inflammatory cascade that feeds itself. Patients take antithrombotic therapy to contain it, and pay for it in bleeding risk.
Re-endothelialization alone does not close the loop. An endothelium can cover a stent within weeks and still be pro-inflammatory and pro-thrombotic. Coverage is topological; it is not function.
Platelets bump into the vessel wall constantly and leave unactivated. The reason is CD31. Platelets, leukocytes and endothelial cells all carry it. When their CD31 molecules interlock, each cell recognizes “self” and receives the same message: leave me alone.
SP1072 is a 16-amino-acid peptide that mimics the tip of CD31 (domains 1–2). Grafted onto the implant surface by click chemistry, it shows the blood a surface it recognizes as healthy endothelium. Nothing is released: the coating is a recognition cue, and the surrounding cells do the healing themselves.
New data from a pig coronary study designed to push the coating to its limits. Balloon-expandable cobalt-chromium stents were implanted with deliberate overstretch (balloon-to-artery ratio 1.2). They were compared head-to-head with bare-metal and drug-eluting stents, and examined at 30 days by OCT, scanning electron microscopy and histology.
The question: can a drug-free surface match a drug-eluting stent on neointima while building a healthier endothelium? The answer is at Station 2.
Christophe Bureau is in San Diego from 31 October to 3 November. AlchiMedics licenses and transfers its coating technology to device manufacturers: coronary and peripheral stents, structural heart, neurovascular and beyond. If you design blood-contacting devices, or invest in companies that do, let’s meet: info@alchimedics.com
AlchiMedics designs coatings for blood-contacting implants. Its earlier coatings, eG™ and Biod-eG™, have been implanted in about 3 million patients since 2011. Research partners: INSERM, LVTS (Université Paris Cité) and CORRIB Core Lab (University of Galway).
SP1072 is an investigational technology and is not approved for clinical use.