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24 He said, “I became fascinated with the catheter construc- tion and design because they play such a critical role in treatment.” Boucher joined Heraeus Medical Components in early 2013, working in the Coiling Group, giving him the oppor- tunity to work on torque coil catheter shafts. He immedi- ately was able to get immersed with the technology and understand how it worked, as well as imagining ways in which performance could be improved. Minimally invasive alternative Similar to a drinking straw, catheters are long hollow tubes that run from the handle of a medical device, which is outside the patient’s body, all the way inside the body to the target location that needs to be treated. Torque coils were previously used in medical devices to transfer the torque of an electric motor outside the body to somewhere inside the body. Co-workers Jake Markham, Choua Xiong and Rick Koniszczuk worked on how to take this technology and apply it to catheters. Better performing catheters provide surgeons with a minimally invasive alternative to procedures like open heart surgery, which come with more complexity and require longer patient recovery times. But the challenge that Boucher and HMC colleagues faced was significant: braided catheter shafts fail to meet physi- cian needs because of the lack of smooth energy transfer from handle to tip. The team took the torque coil techno- logy and adapted the design and processing to enable thinner wall thickness coils and the ability to put any sort of material on the inside and outside of the torque coils. According to Colin, this is very important to customers, adding, “It allows us to customize the catheters for the specific needs of each customer.” Equally important is smooth energy transfer for the physi- cian. Since catheters are an extension of the physician’s hands while inside the body, catheters have to perform consistently and predictably. According to Boucher, Colin Boucher (center) and his colleagues Choua Xiong (left) and Rick Koniszczuk (right) are working to make the new torque coil technology usable for catheters.

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