In 1990, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) made history when it put its “frugal” innovation in cardiac surgery to clinical use – the Chitra Heart Valve – an indigenously developed cardiac prosthetic valve and one which has stood the test of time, having been implanted in over two lakh individuals till now.

Three decades later, SCTIMST has unveiled “Chitra Core”, yet another home-grown innovation in cardiac care and one of the two fully indigenously developed coronary stents it has designed on a single Cobalt-Chromium alloy platform.

The product’s commercial soft launch – a Make in India success story – was held in the capital on Saturday (August 15, 2026), at the annual conference of Interventional Cardiology Council of Kerala

Chitra Core is only half the story. The second stent in the project, the Titanium Nitride-coated bare metal stent named “Chitra TiN”, claimed to be a cutting-edge innovation, is now ready for pre-clinical evaluations prior to a global launch.

The design technology for both Chitra Core and Chitra TiN was fully developed by the Division of Artificial Internal Organs at the Biomedical Technology wing of SCTIMST and had been transferred to Invasive Technologies Pvt Ltd., under a formal MoU in 2024 itself.

“Chitra Core is a polymer-coated Everolimus drug-eluting stent like any other stent currently in the market but its USP is its patented design innovation, its choice of materials and manufacturing process. It has 30-40% less metal content than the normal stents in the market and thus minimises vessel damage and also reduces the known stent-related complications such as restenosis (re-narrowing of the artery) and late-stage thrombosis,” said N.N. Subhash, scientist-engineer at the Department of Medical Device Engineering, BMT wing and the principal investigator of the Coronary Stent Project.

Invasive Technologies secured the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) licence to manufacture Chitra Core in December 2025, after the prototype successfully completed all regulatory formalities.

Much-awaited Chitra TiN

All eyes are now on the much-awaited Chitra TiN, the Titanium Nitride barrier technology which represents a first-in-class, polymer-free platform with no direct global equivalent at the current price point. The project was supported by the Technical Research Centre for Biomedical Devices, of the Department of Science and Technology.

Even though drug-eluting stents were meant to tackle the problem of restenosis because of the cells from the inner artery walls growing over the stent, these stents could not prevent the problem of late-stage thrombosis. Also, normal metallic stents release trace amounts of nickel ions into the blood stream, which in a small sub-section of patients can lead to inflammation and restenosis of blood vessels

Minimising risk

“Chitra TiN’s unique metal stent design with TiN coating prevents the direct metal contact with blood and tissue, minimising the risk of restenosis and late-stage thrombosis (clot formation),” Mr. Subhash said.

TiN is one of the most advanced and highly robust ceramic coating materials, which has been found ideal for coating implantable metallic biomedical devices like coronary valves and stents because of its excellent biocompatibility, high mechanical strength and ability to resist in vivo corrosion. SCTIMST has been researching with TiN since the late 1980s and the second-generation TTK Chitra-Titanium heart valve (awaiting commercial launch), also comes coated with TiN.

“None of the coronary stents in the global market uses TiN coating. As a global launch is being planned, the Chitra TiN prototype will now have to undergo a host of pre-clinical regulatory tests that complies with international standards in laboratories abroad. We had excellent results for the product in the histopathological evaluations conducted following animal trials but the regulatory pathway to launch is long and tedious ,” says S. Harikrishnan, Professor of Cardiology, SCTIMST and Principal clinical investigator, said

Chitra TiN was selected among top three innovations in health in 2024 at the Aegis Graham Bell awards, the largest innovation awards supported by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. It was also selected among the top 12 innovations by BUILD (Boeing University Innovation Leadership Development) programme of IIT Madras Incubation Cell in 2023