Represents Company’s Planned Expansion Beyond Cardiac Surgery into Other Major Surgical Markets with Large Potential. New Form Factor Also Would Be Smallest Available, Enabling Single-Site and Natural Orifice Surgery.
Cardica, Inc. today announced that it is seeking to expand beyond the field of cardiac surgery and into additional surgical markets with the development of a potentially revolutionary, true multi-fire endoscopic linear microcutter based on proprietary technology developed at Cardica. Cardica has applied its knowledge and experience in automated cardiovascular staplers to develop a prototype of the Cardica Microcutter that is significantly smaller than currently commercialized endoscopic microcutters and, unlike commercialized products, can be fired multiple times without removing the device from the surgical site. Cardica has submitted several patent applications related to the Cardica Microcutter and is in discussions with multiple potential development and commercialization partners to advance further development of the Cardica Microcutter and potentially bring this significant advancement in minimally invasive surgery to surgeons and their patients.
The Cardica Microcutter is designed to cut and staple continuously, without needing to replace a spent cartridge with a new one after each deployment. The Cardica Microcutter would be fully articulating. The device is 8 mm in diameter, compared to commercialized products that are at least 12 mm in diameter, allowing access through smaller, less-invasive ports. Variants of Cardica’s technology could enable shaft diameters as small as 5 mm. Because of the small size of Cardica’s device, it also could enable port-access surgeries, including robot-assisted surgery, Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES) and Single-site surgical interventions, which are rapidly emerging interventional areas.
“We believe that our true multi-fire endoscopic microcutter product could redefine minimally invasive surgery, potentially resulting in significant improvements in surgical techniques, time and cost savings and ultimately in improved patient outcomes,” said Bernard Hausen, M.D., Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Cardica. “The Cardica Microcutter is designed to offer significant advantages to currently available products and has the potential to be used in many applications, including in general, gynecologic and bariatric surgery.”
Potential advantages of the Cardica device include the ability to:
- Place up to seven successive staple deployments without needing to remove the Microcutter from the surgical site; in contrast, currently available devices require the deployment tool to be removed from the surgical site for cartridge reload after each deployment; this requires 11 individual steps for replacement of each cartridge;
- Facilitate less invasive laparoscopic surgical approaches through a significant size reduction and ability to access difficult-to-reach areas via a flexible shaft design; and
- Dissect, clamp, coagulate and cut like conventional closure devices when combined with bi-polar coagulation technology; this could result in giving surgeons the option to switch between stapling and sealing with the push of a button and could reduce the need for surgeons to use as many as three different modalities during surgery, thereby reducing costs and significantly improving ease of use.
“Improvements in endoscopic linear cutters have been very limited since these instruments were introduced more than 15 years ago. We believe that the use of Cardica’s multi-fire technology in our practice could result in significant time and cost savings. A smaller, true multi-fire endocutter would also greatly enhance our ability to advance emerging fields of less invasive surgery, such as Single-Site Laparoscopy and NOTES procedures”, said Paresh C. Shah, M.D., general surgeon and Chief of Laparoscopic Services at Lenox Hill Hospital, New York.”
Source: Cardica
published: April 30, 2009 in: Companies, News, Products, Specialty