Physician collaboration has been the cornerstone of our product development for many years. Some of our favourite products, such as BIGopsy®, LithAssist™, and our nitinol stone extractor family, have been the result of close partnerships with physicians. Unfortunately, there are several factors that are changing these relationships. Physicians who have good ideas are finding new ways to market their technologies by using methods like venture capitalism and technology acquisition. Also, the increased scrutiny on physician and industry relationships puts a strain on the collaboration process. Our product lines prove how effective this process can be, when it is done the right way.
Physicians are on the front lines of treating patients every day. They see the clinical problems that come up while in the operating room, and they often have ideas about how to fix these problems. Bringing these ideas to a team of people who can translate the idea into a functioning product (not to mention manufacture, gain regulatory approval, and market the finished product) can be beneficial for the physician, for us, and especially for the patient.
Rebecca Walendzak is the director of global product management for Cook Medical’s Urology division
There are a couple of reasons why we feel so strongly about maintaining collaboration as the foundation of our research and development. First, we want to ensure that we’re making the best possible product for patients. Physicians know patients best, so we keep the physician involved throughout the entire process of developing the product. “The entire process” could mean we start with a drawing on the back of a napkin and end with a stock of products on a hospital’s shelf, and we’re ok with that. Throughout that time, we are working closely with the physician to ensure that this product will serve a patient well in the operating room.
Second, we care about creating devices for patient populations who may not normally get attention from venture capitalists or other large companies. These devices typically require much more developed ideas, and much of the research and development process has to be done by the physician with his or her personal time and money. Venture capitalists and other large companies are also usually only interested in a product that has a huge market opportunity, which underserves smaller patient populations who need innovative ideas more than anyone.
We remain open to this collaboration process, and we encourage physicians to approach us with ideas. Together, we can keep up with the growing demand for innovative new products.
Rebecca Walendzak
Director, Global Product Management – Urology
If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that there’s only so much time in the day. That makes time a precious resource, perhaps nowhere more so than in healthcare. This wouldn’t be a problem if there were a limited number of patients a day that needed a procedure done in the operating room. We all know that’s not the case, and some recent data shows that it’s not going to change any time soon. A CDC report suggests that the population of Americans over the age of 65 will double by 2030.
Jean-Marc Creissel is the vice president of Cook Medical’s Urology division
An equally important challenge when discussing patient populations is the exponential growth of the global insured population. Many of these new patients may not have access to the type of modern hospital that the Western world is used to. So, there is also a huge need to provide technologies that can be used in simpler settings to reach some of these developing areas.
Both of these growing patient populations will place additional strain on the healthcare system. More patients will need to be treated in the same amount of time, expecting the same (if not better) outcomes. And we are all experiencing the need to eliminate cost from the system. All this, plus the fact that we’ll have fewer urologists in the coming years, adds up to a troubling picture.
This is always in my mind as I work with the Urology Product Management team to develop new products. These days, our top-priority projects are designed not only to solve clinical problems, but also to contain the cost of the overall procedure. We are also looking for ways to bring our devices to simpler treatment environments to better serve patients everywhere.
Examples of this can be seen in our latest products. One is our Flexor® Parallel™, which gives physicians the option to use only one wire guide as both a working wire and a safety wire when placing a ureteral access sheath. Another is LithAssist®, which frees up an assistant in the operating room during percutaneous stone extraction procedures by placing control of the suction in the physician’s hands. A third is Flexor® Vue™, a cost effective endoscopic option for healthcare facilities that don’t have access to more expensive scope technology or are limited by reprocessing capabilities.
We are proud of these cost- and time-saving features, because it’s these which will contribute to address the new global medical challenges. Unconventional treatment environments require innovative solutions, which we are working hard to provide.
Containing the cost of healthcare is critical to building a sustainable industry. We can’t add more hours to the day, but hopefully we can help make those hours more efficient and less expensive so healthcare can keep up with its growing patient populations.
Jean-Marc Creissel
Vice President of Cook Medical’s Urology division
If you blink as you drive through the town of Spencer in southern Indiana, you might just miss it. It’s here, on the outskirts of this rural town, that two of the major players in the urological devices market have set up shop. Cook Spencer got its start as Vance Products Incorporated back in 1977, and Boston Scientific acquired a manufacturing facility in Spencer in 1988 and began making products for endoscopy and urology. In a way, you could say Spencer is the unofficial urology device capital of the world.
Step inside the sterile, controlled environments of the Cook Spencer production area and you’ll find basket builders like Vickie Guy. She’s making one of our new nitinol Perc extractors, crafting each device by hand to exacting specifications.
Vickie sits at her workstation surrounded by raw materials and a spool of nitinol wire. With keen vision and the nimble dexterity of a tailor, Vickie weaves a basket, threads it into the polished tip of a coated cannula, and attaches a handle.
After a thorough inspection, she can’t help but pause and take pride in her work. Following additional inspections and detailed quality controls, the finished product is packaged and shipped from our hands to yours.
Now imagine you’re standing in a sterile, climate-controlled operating room with a patient on the table. There’s a sizable stone in the patient’s kidney, and today one of Vickie’s extractors is being put to good use. With keen vision and skilled precision, you confidently reach for the extractor, insert it into the patient with care, and remove the stone.
Once the stone has been extracted, you pause to admire your work. That’s a meaningful moment—a reflection on a job well done—and one that’s not lost on us. We live for moments like that. That’s why we do what we do.
We focus on quality over quantity and won’t compromise even if it means taking extra time to make each product. It’s quality you can see and feel. It’s quality you can trust.
