First-time Dragons’ Den winner Peter Schneider (Honolulu, USA) beat off stiff competition with his recently CE-marked device the Tack-IT endovascular stapler, which is designed to optimise peripheral angioplasty results for the treatment of peripheral artery disease.

 

The other contenders were Ralf Kolvenbach, Düsseldorf, Germany, with the BYFix Anastomic device (HDH Medical), which is used to mechanically connect any standard vascular graft to the blood vessel; Claude Mialhe, Draguignan, France, with the Twister device – a new concept of endovascular embolisation and occlusion; and James Coleman (Dublin, London) with a novel percutaneous transapical closure device for structured heart disease and aortic arch procedures.

Schneider said that the acute technical success with the endostapler device “was good”, the ability to place the device “right where we wanted it” was 96% in their first-in-man series, and procedure time was similar to a standard lower extremity case. He added: “We got the acute stent-like result without a stent while addressing some of disadvantages of stent.”