VEXTEC to Participate in Inaugural Medical Devices Special Interest Group Planning Meeting

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. - Oct. 18, 2014 - PRLog -- The Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) is launching the Medical Devices Special Interest Group (SIG). VEXTEC’s Vice President of Sales & Business Development Dr. Sanjeev Kulkarni has been invited to participate in the inaugural SIG planning meeting to be held on October 23rd at the BMES Annual Meeting in San Antonio. The primary objective of the SIG is to foster strong communication between academic researchers, experts from industry, regulatory professionals, and practicing clinicians in order to promote the development of innovative medical devices within the field of BME. The ultimate goal is to identify leaders that will build this SIG and support efforts such as the BMES/FDA Frontiers of Medical Devices conference to be held in May 2015.

The alignment with VEXTEC stems from the initial focus of the SIG being the Computational Modeling and Simulation for Medical Devices. Discussion topics will include: sharing of models and interpretation of simulation results, promoting best practices and credibility of boundary and system conditions and providing a platform for interactions between experts with varying backgrounds.

VEXTEC collaborated with Boston Scientific to create probabilistic microstructural material models for computational strength prediction and then combined these with finite element analysis (FEA) and Virtual Life Management to predict risk i.e., probability of failure of a device. Two specific devices and Contexts of Use include:

a) Pacemaker leads made of MP35N material subject to two amplitudes of bending fatigue

b) Endoscopic airway stent made of Nitinol material subject to a crushing load to represent stent deformation depicting a cough.

For the pacemaker leads project, VLM was able to characterize the lead design as a function of material microstructure (grain size, inclusion size and density) while using residual stress as a calibrating parameter. This study was able to demonstrate VLM’s ability to iterate with material substitution, vendor management, sensitivity analysis, design trade studies and design optimization.

VEXTEC (http://www.vextec.com) was founded in 2000 and developed its patented technology primarily through Department of Defense Small Business Innovative Research programs. VEXTEC now offers its Virtual Life Management software and services to the medical device industry (http://www.vextec.com/PDFs/VEXTECCaseStudyMedicalImplantW...), including companies such as Boston Scientific.