The global engineering, manufacturing and supply chain services company Jabil has spent more than two decades serving healthcare customers, with manufacturing and engineering work that includes medical devices and related capital equipment. One thing that it did not have until recently was a rapid, in-house way to prototype catheter components at the same pace. Its new Advanced Catheter Development Lab, opened December 5 at the company’s St. Petersburg, Florida, headquarters, fills that void. Located inside the Jabil Innovation Center, it offers on-site engineering, prototyping and testing for advanced catheters and other minimally invasive devices. The pitch is fewer handoffs and earlier compatibility checks, with specialized processes like braiding and coiling, laser cutting, balloon forming and bonding, plus access to an adjacent failure analysis lab.
Ramy Awad, technical business development manager for healthcare at Jabil and one of the lead engineers behind the new facility, said the lab can support device makers at any stage, from funded startups to tier-one OEMs. In the following Q&A, Awad explains what the lab can do, why Jabil built it, and how the team expects it to accelerate early-stage catheter development.
Image courtesy of Jabil.
Awad: Jabil’s state-of-the-art catheter lab dramatically accelerates design iterations by combining rapid catheter and sheath prototyping and real-time in-lab testing, slashing weeks off OEM development timelines. This enables faster, more frequent design loops which in turn helps OEMs bring devices to market faster. Strategic OEMs also want a partner that houses expertise in electronics, polymers, mechanics, imaging, miniaturization, and optics all under one roof. The Jabil Advanced Catheter Development Lab delivers complete, integrated catheter solutions rather than fragmented components, providing a true end-to-end outsourcing experience without the complexity of managing multiple vendors. The lab sits in the Jabil Innovation Center at our St. Petersburg, Florida, headquarters, which
Image courtesy of Jabil.
Image courtesy of Jabil.
How does the lab’s integration with Jabil‘s broader Innovation Center in St. Petersburg create advantages for clients during early-stage development?
Awad: Our customers are looking for complete solutions. Jabil has over 25 years of experience with creating capital equipment that drives catheter-based single-use devices. With the integration of this Advanced Catheter Development Lab, we are able to provide a complete solution to our customers. We can design and develop their custom capital equipment and the connected catheter-based single use devices all in one place.
Looking ahead, what trends in minimally invasive devices do you see shaping the lab’s priorities over the next few years?
Image courtesy of Jabil.
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