Medical device maker Crospon breaks into the US

14 Apr 2010

Fast-moving Galway medical devices developer Crospon has launched its EndoFLIP product, which received FDA clearance in December, into the lucrative US healthcare market.

EndoFLIP is the first product of its kind which allows a bariatric surgeon to measure and set a consistent gastric band stoma size during surgery.

Crospon develops leading-edge minimally invasive medical devices for monitoring, diagnosis and therapy in the gastroenterology area.

As part of the 12th World Congress of Endoscopic Surgery in Washington, DC, Crospon also presented the results of a pilot clinical study which assesses the optimum stoma size for a well-adjusted gastric band.

“We are pleased to be launching EndoFLIP to the US market, following on from its successful release in Europe last year,” Larry Fulton, VP sales for the Americas, Crospon, told the congress.

“Gastric banding is the fastest-growing class of bariatric surgery in the US, and we believe that EndoFLIP can bring a new science to gastric-band adjustment.”

To date, all the key bariatric surgery clinical investigations for EndoFLIP have taken place at the Speciality Surgery Center of Fort Worth, Texas, a centre of the American Institute of Gastric Banding (AIGB), the largest gastric band placement institute in the world, under the direction of principal investigator Dr Robert G Snow.

“EndoFLIP is providing us new insights into the way we adjust gastric bands,” Snow said.

“We have conducted a number of studies with the technology to date, and look forward to presenting the results of these studies in the coming months.

“In addition, we look forward to collaborating with a number of new leading bariatric surgery study centres inside and outside of the US as we collectively seek to better define new techniques for best use of the EndoFLIP system for gastric band adjustments,” Snow said.

By John Kennedy

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com