TUBING, CATHETERS & STENTS
MIKE WINTERLING, JUNKOSHA’S VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FOR USA & EUROPE, TAKES US THROUGH THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN THE COMPANY’S PHST PORTFOLIO AND INTRODUCES THE NEWLY LAUNCHED PTFE LINER CHALLENGE.
MOVING BEYOND
F
CONVENTION
or manufacturers and consumers in the medtech sector, everadvancing tubing and catheter applications have highlighted several unmet needs. To address these gaps,
Junkosha has designed peelable fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) heat shrink tubing (PHST) to give catheter manufacturers cost-effective, lower tolerance baseline materials to achieve reflow into a single smooth construct. The key advantage to PHST is its peelable design, which makes removing it significantly easier compared with the traditional method of skiving, thereby saving time and reducing risk of damage to the underlying construct. Junkosha’s PHST solutions are ideal for particularly small devices such as micro-catheters due to their simplicity in removal. Conventional skiving techniques do not work well on smaller reflowed catheters, frequently leading to scoring or kinking of the catheter shaft, rendering them useless. The move towards miniaturisation in medical tubing is picking up pace, with medical device manufacturers demanding catheter solutions that can readily penetrate harder to reach anatomy to treat a broader range of patients and conditions. Junkosha has developed a range of medical tubing innovations, including the first ultra-small PHST — a tubing solution suited for laminated jacket coating of tiny guide wires (down to 0.011” and 0.014”),
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