Cook Launch Targets IR Business 4842

Sailing a sloop in a force 8 gale seems a wiser decision than launching a new business into the current economic headwinds. Yet, Cook Medical (Bloomington, IN) has done just that, announcing in February the debut of its interventional radiology strategic business unit. The SBU will invest significantly in new devices and technologies to support interventional radiologists performing oncology, nonvascular, venous, angiographic, and other IR medical procedures, according to Cook.

Despite the economic climate, Cook Medical believes it has a breeze at its back in the form of new products and growing global interest in IR, according to Dan Sirota, global business unit leader for interventional radiology. Longer life expectancies and cancer rates played a role in the decision to launch, notes Sirota.
Sirota declined to say how much Cook Medical would invest in devices and technology or how much the new launch cost the company, which is privately held. “I will tell you that the new business is the fourth largest of our nine businesses,” he says. “It comes out already with a pretty healthy base [of operations].”
Evolutionary Process
Sirota says the debut is a logical extension of 45 years of creating “less-invasive” medical procedures, noting, “it's very much an evolutionary process versus a revolutionary process.” The company needed “to harness additional product-development regulatory resources” in order to develop the new business.
“We see image guidance clearly taking more of a role in the future of medicine,” says Sirota, who started at Cook in 1987 and has worked his way up the ranks in sales, marketing, and product development. “The less invasive [the procedure], the better. This is just an extension of that [thinking].” The unit's leader says Cook Medical had reached the point where it needed to develop more IR products for “nonarterial procedures, if you will.”
In making the February 2 announcement, the company said the minimally invasive devices and technologies it has had a part in developing since the 1960s have lessened the need for open surgeries. For patients the result has been reduced suffering, fewer complications, and shorter recovery times, according to the company. And hospitals have saved millions of dollars annually.
A Full Pipeline
Sirota says the SBU will build on Cook Medical's established record of bringing value to its customers. This includes not only the product line, he insists, but also standard-practice overnight shipping and price adjustments on certain products in order to help struggling hospitals save time and money. Sirota says the company's Spectrum technology is a good example of product that improves patient care and reduces hospital costs. Catheter material can be impregnated inside and out with a combination of minocycline and rifampin to protect patients from catheter-related bloodstream infections.
Market readiness and technology development were key to Cook Medical's decision. Production at the Bloomington headquarters was ramped up in order to develop new devices “within a couple of months,” Sirota says. “The pipeline for new product ideas was full enough that it made sense to bring this business to the forefront,” he adds. The new IR business plans to introduce “at least three or four” products in 2009.
Organic Growth
Cook Medical initially hoped to introduce some products in the spring around the time of the annual Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) 34th annual meeting, which was held March 7–12 in San Diego. Cook now expects new product debuts later this year. Sirota hints that one of the launches “will provide us a significant opportunity to work with our hospital customers to reduce costs in the millions.” The SBU expects to introduce products for both current and new procedures, with the latter focused on cancer outpatients, Sirota says.
As for product development, Sirota says that Cook “focuses on organic growth” by working with clinician customers, primarily physicians and other medical professionals to identify areas of need to help them solve problems. The problem-solving process enables the company to “uncover new less-invasive procedures and other treatments.”
Cook cites a World Health Organization (WHO) report from December 2008 that cancer will be the number one cause of deaths in adults by 2010, overtaking heart disease. WHO estimates that global cancer cases and deaths will increase more than two-fold by 2030. The alarming prediction makes interventional radiology technologies such as embolization and localized chemotherapy delivery even more important strategic weapons for treating cancer, Sirota believes.
Despite the benefits, IR “is not as well-known a subspecialty as it probably should be,” Sirota says. SIR and others are trying to improve the specialty's profile. “There are a lot of procedures where a surgeon could use an interventional radiologist to provide support, but surgeons will choose not to use IR for whatever reason. However, there are circumstances where a patient is not suitable for open surgery and [the surgeon] will ask an interventional radiologist for support. That's becoming more and more common.” Sirota says Cook Medical is seeing an increase in doctors using IR to supplant surgical procedures.
Raising IR's Profile
Sirota says SIR's 3500 members need to work harder in its global outreach to better sell IR's benefits to patients. The society must work with the membership “to help the lay public understand what it is they do,” he notes. A good example of a non-surgical approach is the ability to treat “uterine fibroids in a minimally invasive manner and preserve the uterus.” IR-based prostate treatment is another good example, he says.
In March Cook Medical reported positive results from an 11-month clinical study led by Manish Patel, MD, for the company's Biodesign vaginal erosion repair graft for the treatment of vaginal mesh exposures. The complication results from using synthetic mesh in repairing the pelvic floor in treating pelvic organ relapse. Cook presented the results at the 2009 Society for Urodynamics and Female Urology Winter Meeting in Las Vegas.
The study used the Biodesign graft to treat 10 women with extrusions caused by the use of polypropylene or synthetic mesh in previous pelvic floor reconstruction. The Biodesign graft was implanted after complete removal of the exposed synthetic mesh, and the graft successfully repaired all 10 exposures with no further complication, Cook says. Pelvic floor disorders affect one-third of all U.S. women, Cook says, citing data from the National Institute of Health.
Treating medical conditions, even life-threatening ones, such as these “in a much kinder, gentler manner” is IR's big selling point, Sirota observes. The launch of the IR business presents “a great opportunity for Cook even in these challenging times” to offer more of the technology's benefits “for our hospital and clinical partners,” he says.

© 2009 Canon Communications LLC

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