Drug/medical device combination has received increasing attention from both medical device companies and drug producers and a promising new opportunity for improving implanted prosthetic device performance. Current applications cover mostly cardiovascular (drug-eluting stent) and few orthopaedic (e.g. antibiotic nail) applications. Moreover, they mostly rely on "passive" release of AACs, e.g. purely physical by diffusion or chemical by degradation of a polymer coating containing AAC and often deliver massive amounts of antibiotics, or release of silver which is likely to be limited to topical applications. Few have addressed smart approaches such as responsive polymers with bacterial kill and release function.

The following Challenges have been identified (selected)

• use of a standardized murine subcutaneous biomaterial associated infection model to serve as a standard model for testing across all delivery platforms;
• development of a sheep model to study the biology of two-stage hardware exchange due to implant related osteomyelitis;
• use of a rabbit model suitable for testing the prevention and treatment of infection of an intramedullary nail;
• use of a mouse model suitable for testing the prevention and treatment of infection of an internal fracture fixation device;
• murine model of infection of intramedullary nail (AMC).