Developing micro-stents with customised magnesium

MedAlliance have been producing micro-stents through a process of wave form coiling for a number of years. This method is not typical in the development of micro-stents nor is the material they used standard procedure either. Opting for a custom made magnesium resulted in these micro-dimensioned coils being made by hand. This made development times lengthy and brought with it challenges in how to increase production output.  

The micro-measurements proved to be a challenge for any manufacturer to produce. MedAlliance approached SCS with the designs they had developed for making the micro-coil manually. They discussed having the 2D waveform machine made, automating an entire element in the micro-stent production. In order to become more familiar with the technology used, SCS produced a coil that was 3 times the dimensions of the original drawings. SCS then developed the tooling and identified the exact machinery that would be required to make the waveform micro-coils to the required minute dimensions and began production. 

The machined waveform micro-coil enabled MedAlliance to increase their entire production, speeding up the process of going through clinical trial and increasing productivity. This resulted in MedAlliance surpassing clinical trial timelines that had previously been projected. 

Stints in the medical sector are usually made of mesh. However, MedAlliance had developed a new technology that no longer saw the need to join mesh together to make a stint. The new approach required 170m of magnesium to be moulded/WORD to create micro-waves that are then looped 9 times in a cylindrical/meticulous manner to form a stint.