Beta O2 technologies has developed a second-generation device (βAir®).
In the 2nd generation device, there is a separation between the oxygen tank compartment and the macro-capsule that holds the biomass. This separation allows us to develop each component separately.
In additional to it, the loading mechanism of the device has changed. The loading mechanism of the 2nd generation device is done by injection of the hydrogel-clusters mixture. By doing so, it was able to shave twenty to forty minutes of the integration period per for each device.
It is possible to load much more clusters per device. Yet, the diffusion properties were not affected due to the decrease with device thickness from 600 µm to 200 µm.
The new oxygen tank is able to support the increased oxygen demands of all the clusters to achieve maximum insulin secretion from the device.
The rat-size device is already in pre-clinical trials and the human-size device is next to follow.