Surgeon-led innovation in device design

When one of the UK’s foremost laparoscopic surgeons, Professor McMahon, identified a way to solve the problems of organ retraction, during laparoscopic surgery, he decided to approach one of the world’s largest manufacturers of medical devices with his concept. Frustrated by the response he encountered, he took matters into his own hands and made his first steps towards becoming a surgeon-entrepreneur – a move which culminated in the development of an award-winning instrument design business, Surgical Innovations. The company, which has more than trebled the size of its design and manufacturing facilities in recent years, has come a long way since its humble beginnings, when Prof. McMahon designed his first prototype innovations from his kitchen table. One of the UK’s earliest pioneers in laparoscopic surgery, Prof. McMahon explained that his initial venture into the world of instrument design was driven by a desire to improve the safety of minimally invasive procedures: “The first laparoscopic surgical procedures were performed in the late 1980s, in France and the US – but, at Leeds, we were among the early adopters of the technique in the UK. I was inspired by a video of a French surgeon performing a laparoscopic gall bladder removal and set out to obtain the equipment with a view to adopting the procedure. The department ran the first training course, with a US surgeon from Kansas, in June 1990, and subsequently started using laparoscopic techniques, on a regular basis, to remove the gall bladder. “However, it soon became apparent, by learning from the mistakes of others, that there was a need to improve the safety of laparoscopic surgery. We therefore looked at developing instrumentation that would enable us to perform the procedure in such a way that embodied all the ‘tricks’ and safeguards of traditional open surgery, which had been learned over the course of the last 100 years,” he commented.

Prof. McMahon explained that one of the problems in early laparoscopic surgery was providing unimpeded access to the gall bladder. In traditional open surgery, the liver would be lifted out of the way by the surgeon’s assistant, using retractors, but the approach was unsatisfactory in keyhole surgery. Working with Peter Moran, an innovator in the design of surgical instrumentation, he set out to develop a solution that could move the liver, as well as the gullet, out of the way of the field of surgery, without causing damage. The result was the EndoFlex retractor, which provided considerable advantage; and, in 1992, Prof McMahon and Peter Moran established the company Surgical Innovations, to manufacture the instrument commercially. “It soon became clear there was a market for the instrumentation, but I did not want to give up being a surgeon, so I brought in outside expertise to develop the business,” said Prof. McMahon. Since its inception, the company has continued to take pioneering ideas from the frontline of surgery, transforming them into reality; and, most recently, the company was commended for its contribution – winning the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition for outstanding innovation and business performance.

Innovative port access system