NEED TO KNOW
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The ultraminiature pressure-monitoring sensor from Samba Sensors can serve as a component in catheters.
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Contract manufacturer Raumedic AG (Münchberg, Germany; www.raumedic.com) and fiber-optic sensor specialist Samba Sensors AB (Göteborg, Sweden; www.samba.se) have joined efforts to develop catheters that incorporate fiber-optic pressure-monitoring technology. The collaboration will focus on designing catheters for MRI and preclinical imaging applications.
Each firm brings a unique set of skills to the partnership. Samba Sensors’s ultraminiature sensing technology is what caught Raumedic’s eye, according to Raumedic R&D director Christian von Falkenhausen. “Samba’s fiber-based technology is extremely small and robust,” he notes. “It will allow us to pursue new business opportunities in the high-tech catheter [market].”
As for Samba Sensors, it saw in Raumedic an opportunity to take its technology to the next level. “Raumedic possesses all the frontline capabilities and resources needed to integrate our sensor technology into catheters,” says president Lennart Nilsson. It also has a first-rate production facility that can accommodate large-scale manufacturing, he adds.
Raumedic has already developed a catheter incorporating a sensor that is used for neuromonitoring. “It’s the only catheter on the market that combines the parameters of pressure, oxygen, and temperature in one probe,” explains von Falkenhausen.
Sensing products from Samba Sensors can be used for preclinical applications such as measuring blood pressure, intracranial pressure, and intervertebral disk pressure, as well as for a variety of clinical applications. Founded to commercialize a pressure sensor developed at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, the sensor company has been developing transducer technology with an emphasis on ultraminiature catheters for the past decade.
