Spirus's Endo-Ease endoscopy devices approved in Japan
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) has approved Spirus Medical's Endo-Ease line of endoscopy devices. The devices use spiral rotation to allow "gentler" endoscopy procedures, such as enteroscopy, colonoscopy and ileoscopy. The Stoughton, Massachusetts firm believes the products are well-suited to the Japanese market, where competing products such as Given Imaging's PillCam have not proven as popular as expected. Spirus claims that this is because PillCam can only visualise abnormalities, whereas the Endo-Ease devices can be used for both diagnosis and treatment. The Endo-Ease scopes will be distributed in Japan by Century Medical. They are already available in the US and, in 2008, the FDA approved deeper use of the Endo-Ease Discovery SB device (www.clinica.co.uk, 30 May 2008).