The Plastics Industry Awards (PIA) are a national event, dedicated to rewarding innovation and exceptional performance to the best companies and designers within the polymer field. The ceremony is held annually in London and is considered to be the 'Oscars' of the UK plastics industry. Launched in 2001, it is now firmly established as the most respected accolade for the plastics industry, rewarding excellence in materials usage, design and manufacturing. The compere and entertainment of the evening this year was comedian Tim Vine.
EndoCuff is an overtube that fits onto the tip of conventional colonoscopes to improve the colonoscopy procedure. Its innovative use of polymer technology and ground breaking design integrated with real health benefits within cancer detection made EndoCuff a winning candidate.
DesignEdge, whose medical products also include the award-winning intelligent prosthetic foot for Ossur, worked with Arc Medical and Boddingtons Plastics on the product development for three years. The challenge was to create a simple, flexible sleeve to improve the colonoscopy procedure in terms of visibility, detection, speed (it is currently a 25-30 minute procedure) and patient comfort. Recent studies have highlighted a 24% risk of missing even large polyps during colonoscopy and also its relative failure to influence the development of right sided colon cancer, as much as two thirds of missed polyphs are located behind folds. The result improves the physician's ability to visualize and examine the mucosa, its flexible arms open the bowel for inspection, everting large musocal folds providing clear views of mucosa previously difficult to visualize. The EndoCuff endoscopic overtube reduces slippage and assists the physician by maintaining a steady view while instruments are fed through the biopsy channel. The product also had to be able to attach to a number of colonoscope sizes and be designed for mass production.
Says Bruce Hutchison a Director at DesignEdge: “The design language reflects a compact, technically detailed overtube for the medical environment and we are delighted that the challenges we overcame in creating a device to improve the colonoscopy procedure and cancer detection has been recognised with this award. The ability to identify pre-cancerous lesions and remove polyps has made it the gold standard for bowel cancer screening.”
EndoCuff has previously won a prestigious Red Dot Design Award and was a Silver Award Winner in the Scientific Instruments, Medical Devices and Research Equipment Design Category of the A' Design Awards. DesignEdge was also a previous finalist in the 2006 PIA awards for its work with Megger on a range of electrical test meters.
About DesignEdge
DesignEdge delivers a total industrial design and engineering service to a diverse variety of industries, taking designs through from initial concept sketches all the way to manufacture. For more about DesignEdge visit www.designedge.co.uk or call 01223 566439.
About Arc Medical Design
Arc Medical Design specialises in finding simple and effective solutions to everyday problems in medical endoscopy. Founded in 2007, the company has built a team of key medical opinion leaders as well as experts in medical design, manufacture, finance, regulation and marketing. It takes ideas through the complex processes of development, manufacture and regulatory hurdles to a marketing and distribution network that covers the world.
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DesignEdge Cambridge Ltd, Unit 5, Quy Court, Colliers Lane, Stow-cum-Quy, Cambridge, CB25 9AU. bruce@designedge.co.uk, www.designedge.co.uk or call 01223 566439.
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