EMDM (Showstoppers 1) - May/June 2002

Originally Published EMDM May/June 2002

MANUFACTURING EQUIPMENT

Supplier combines stent services and processing equipment

Marc van de Graaf, general manager at Fortimedix (Berg en Terblijt, Netherlands), explains that the stent market is driven by perception. "Everyone claims to be manufacturing stents themselves, when in fact they are outsourcing," he says. "But we do it all."

"We have a one-stop-shop philosophy," says van de Graaf. "Our thought was to combine as many stent-related services as possible." Fortimedix, which exhibited at the MEDTEC show in Stuttgart, offers not only a suite of stent development services, but also a line of manufacturing equipment.

The company's product benchmarking service provides clients with fast and independent relative data on the performance characteristics of their devices without having to invest in competitors' products. Assistance is provided with CE marking, and other product development services in the fields of interventional cardiology, interventional radiology, and minimally invasive surgery are available upon request.

The firm offers a universal stent-crimping machine that is fully automated and based on a force-controlled principle; crimping continues until equilibrium of forces has been achieved. The unit features digital pressure-controlled crimping with no precrimped profile measurements and no tool changes or adjustments. Designed for high process yields and short cycle times, the crimping machine offers high process consistency and operator independence. Also available are a stent prereduction machine and a postcrimping heat-set machine.

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