Ovesco Endoscopy AG

Article preview from Start Up - July, 2010

With technology licensed from the University of Tuebingen, Ovesco Endoscopy has set out to address one of the biggest challenges of NOTES procedures: achieving closure of the gastric wall while working through a flexible endoscope. Ovesco has developed a clipping system that imitates the mechanics - the geometry and force pattern - of a surgical suture, but with advantages.

Ovesco Endoscopy AG

Article preview from Start Up - July, 2010

With technology licensed from the University of Tuebingen, Ovesco Endoscopy has set out to address one of the biggest challenges of NOTES procedures: achieving closure of the gastric wall while working through a flexible endoscope. Ovesco has developed a clipping system that imitates the mechanics - the geometry and force pattern - of a surgical suture, but with advantages.

The notion of NOTES (natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery) came to the forefront five or so years ago, at clinical meetings and venture capital partner gatherings, as the next disruptive opportunity in minimally invasive surgery. NOTES would offer the least invasive type of surgery ever, by using the alimentary canal or the vagina as an alternative to abdominal wall surgery for access, avoiding external scars and potentially offering benefits in terms of reduced rates of infection and incisional hernia, and a more rapid return to daily life. However, the field is not proceeding along the linear fashion that was once predicted, but more like the vicious circle that it is. Until surgeons have technologies optimized for NOTES procedures in their hands, which require skills and tools geared toward flexible endoscopy, no one knows what kind of an opportunity the new type of surgery represents; and without predictable and lucrative markets ahead, large companies and investors are loathe to invest in new technologies. The latter is more true now than it was five years ago, in an increasingly risk-averse climate for medtech funding.

Certain physicians are taking matters into their own hands, however. Surgeon Marc Schurr founded Ovesco Endoscopy AG five years with funding from private investors and novineon Ventures, the venture arm of novineon Healthcare Technology Partners GMBH, a consulting and venture firm focusing on medical technology. With technology licensed from the University of Tübingen, Schurr founded Ovesco to address one of the biggest challenges of NOTES: achieving closure of the gastric wall while working through a flexible endoscope. Ovesco has developed a clipping system that imitates the mechanics – the geometry and force pattern – of a surgical suture, but with advantages over that standard method of tissue approximation.

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Ovesco Endoscopy AG


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