ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Pristine Surgical’s FDA-approved high-performance disposable arthroscope is the first in a suite of disruptive single-use endoscopy products that the company believes will lower costs, yield more consistent visualization, and provide an additional measure of infection control.
Sometimes a new perspective can unlock a world of value in a medical device. This was the case for Pristine Surgical, founded in 2011 in Manchester, NH, by two doctors and an engineer from Chicago who had developed a novel kind of arthroscope capable of panning from a 70-degree view to a 30-degree view with the twist of a knob in order to phase out the need to switch between separate angled scopes. When technology leader and advisor Bryan Lord became involved in the company’s fundraising, he facilitated a connection with the prolific inventor Dean Kamen’s DEKA Research and Development, which helped take the concept to its current form. Recognizing the opportunity in the single-use space, the design was pivoted from a reusable model to a disposable one, which became the key facet of the device’s development.