Hundreds of medical technology’s most innovative entrepreneurs, engineers, and other professionals will explore trends and technology shaping the future of the industry at DeviceTalks Boston.
The event, taking place at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on May 10-11, will be co-located with the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum and the Robotics Summit and Expo.
Artificial intelligence, supply chains, robotics, and the role of clinical feedback to advance innovation will highlight the agenda, along with the overarching impact of the global pandemic on healthcare.
About 80 speakers will help DeviceTalks Boston attendees navigate key subjects, including:
Single-use endoscopy will also take center stage. Wes Scruggs, Ambu Inc.'s vice president of corporate accounts, and Dr. Kapil Gupta, a Boston Scientific Corp. senior medical affairs director for endoscopy, will discuss how new designs and clinical demand have converged to create a single-use endoscope market.
By 2024, the market for single-use endoscopes — used once and discarded, with no need for costly capital or reprocessing investments — is poised to grow to $2.5 billion.
Ambu introduced the first single-use bronchoscope in 2009. The company is now on 5th generation technology. In the U.S. alone, more than 40 million procedures are done annually using flexible endoscopes across a variety of clinical specialties.
Typically, reusable endoscope and image processing systems, which can cost $75,000 to $100,000, have long product life cycles. A powerful advantage of single-use endoscopes is the speed with which technological change can occur — at affordable prices for hospitals.
In a recent Becker’s Healthcare webinar, Kemp likened the speed of Ambu’s endoscopy iterations to changes in iPhones, where a new version with added technology and performance comes out every year or so.
Regulatory support has added to the forces driving single-use endoscopy. A safety communication issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2021 recommended that healthcare providers consider using single-use bronchoscopes when there is increased risk of spreading infection, when treating COVID-19 patients, or when immediate reprocessing is not available.
Just last month, the FDA updated a safety recommendation on duodenoscopes and is suggesting that hospitals and endoscopy facilities “complete transition to innovative dudenoscope designs.” That’s due to concerns about reprocessing and patient cross-contamination.
Other factors driving the transition to single-use include workflow and flexibility, economics, and technology innovation.
A Learning Center by Ambu USA
