Utah Firm Unveils Proprietary Device and New Procedure Designed to Substantially Improve Tendon Repair at ASSH 2015
SEATTLE, Washington — September 9, 2015 — CoNextions Medical, Inc. (conextionsmed.com) announced that it will premiere their next generation tendon repair technology, CoNextions TR, at the 70th annual scientific meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) in Seattle.
CoNextions TR has been designed to provide several advantages over the current suture-based repair, which is the standard of care, including: stronger repair strength to enable early active motion; consistent and standardized outcomes; a simpler and faster surgical technique; and an improved quality of recovery for patients.
“For decades, surgeons have repaired tendons with suture-based techniques that are complex and yield unpredictable outcomes,” said Richard J. Linder, Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of CoNextions Medical, a medical device company based in Sandy, Utah. “The lack of innovation in tendon repair has forced highly skilled surgeons to perform long, tedious, non-standardized and challenging surgeries with tools that have not advanced anywhere near the pace of other medical technologies,” Linder continued.
“Because of this situation,” Linder added, “every year tens of thousands of patients with hand, wrist, foot, ankle or other tendon injuries that need surgical repairs risk adverse outcomes and long rehabilitation processes that restrict their ability to work and reduce their quality of life. This is why we are so excited about the potential of CoNextions TR to both simplify surgical repairs and achieve superior clinical outcomes,” Linder concluded.
“We hand surgeons often refer to tendon repairs in Zone II as ‘no man’s land’ due to their difficulty and high complication rates,” said Melvin P. Rosenwasser, MD, the Robert E. Carroll Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and the Director of Orthopedic Hand and Orthopedic Trauma Services for the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Columbia University in New York.
Noting that CoNextions Medical has unveiled its technology after a long period that he characterized as offering “no significant advancements” in soft tissue repair, Rosenwasser suggested that the company’s CoNextions TR “has the opportunity to completely change how hand surgeons will be taught to repair tendons,” citing specifically its projected ability to simplify historically complex surgeries.
“It’s fast, easy and strong,” concluded Rosenwasser, who is widely regarded as a leader in hand and orthopedic trauma surgery, of the repair technique made possible by the CoNextions TR.
“The CoNextions TR device allows for very strong and standardized repairs in less time than it takes to suture,” said William F. Gowski, MD, an Orthopedic Surgeon at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital (TOSH) of Intermountain Healthcare in Murray, Utah and one of several surgeons who partnered with CoNextions Medical engineers to develop the technology.
“The strength of this device will increase tolerance for early active motion, which leads to less adhesion formation,” Gowski added, explaining that these post-surgical characteristics are essential to the rapid restoration of a repaired tendon’s full range of motion.
Gowski continued, “The low profile of the CoNextions TR tendon repair has strong potential to reduce triggering, a common and troubling complication,” which he described as a thickening of the flexor tendon that inhibits proper gliding of the tendon through the tendon sheath, a common complication with tendon repairs in the hand. Of the new approach made possible by CoNextions Medical, he concluded, “It also removes suturing and knot variability, which could help create consistent and standardized patient outcomes.”
“This is why we started the company,” said Erik N. Kubiak, MD, an Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and CoNextions Medical’s Co-founder, Chairman of the Board and Chairman of its medical advisory board. “We founded CoNextions out of a desire to create a better quality of life for patients with tendon injuries,” noted Kubiak, “because of high complication rates, all too often patients cannot return to the full activity and mobility they enjoyed prior to injury.”
Kubiak, who provided the seminal vision for CoNextions Medical’s pioneering new soft tissue repair technology, said he takes great pride in the talented management and engineering teams that are helping him bring his company’s novel device to market. He specifically singled out the leadership provided by Co-founder and CEO Linder, a prominent figure in the local medical device and biotechnology community who also serves as co-founder and director of BIO-Utah, the intermountain state’s life sciences industry association.
“With his track record for turning an idea for a medical device into a market reality, I knew Rich (Linder) was the right partner to build and lead our team,” said Kubiak, explaining how the two joined forces to create CoNextions Medical.
“He’s been on the same page with me from day one: that we’re about helping people, first and foremost,” Kubiak concluded. “Because patients with tendon injuries deserve a much better shot at full recovery — a helping hand, if you will — and that’s what we’re giving them.”
CoNextions Medical, plans to seek regulatory clearance for its CoNextions TR device in the United States and other countries in the near future.
About CoNextions Medical
Founded in 2011, CoNextions Medical, Inc. is a privately held company located in Sandy, Utah. They are an innovation-based medical device company dedicated to achieving safer, stronger, and more durable tendon repairs worldwide marked by faster rehabilitation, fewer complications, and lower long-term costs.
For additional information about CoNextions Medical or the CoNextions TR, contact Angela Bailey, senior vice president of marketing, at (801) 580-4049 or abailey@conextionsmed.com.