The industry wants more data and information from medical devices – instruments used in minimally invasive therapies, wearables and implants – for better patient outcomes and safety. But this throws up an array of new challenges.
A major one is competing requirements like high conductivity, flexibility, fatigue resistance, signal integrity, coating performance, and manufacturability.
At the wire level, the difficulty is that the wire is no longer just a passive component. It may be carrying a signal, helping shape or support the device, enabling torque or push-ability, contributing to radiopacity, and surviving repeated motion inside a very tight anatomy.
Essentially, miniaturisation increases complexity exponentially and in this episode of the Advancing the Future of MedTech with Alleima podcast series, Cacie McDorman, global product manager for wire technologies at Alleima.
Listen here.
“At larger scales, you can compensate for material limitations more easily. But when wire dimensions become extremely small, material consistency and processing precision become critical,” McDorman tells the podcast.
“Tiny variations in diameter, microstructure, surface finish, or coating thickness can significantly impact device performance.”
In our previous episode, McDorman talked about disease-specific technologies such as continuous glucose monitors, as well as the evolution of guidewires from mechanical tools into platforms that can support both navigation and therapy.
Here, she discusses the importance of designing for manufacturability with regard to next-generation “smart” medical devices, what material characteristics matter most and where things can go wrong.
Alleima specialises in advanced materials and precision wire-based technologies for medical applications. McDorman explains why early collaboration with experienced manufacturing partners can help design teams select appropriate materials, coatings and processes, reducing the risk of costly changes later in development.
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