The Worldwide Mesh Technology Centre
This was it, 15th May, the big day: Johnson & Johnson’s Worldwide Mesh Technology Centre was officially opening in Norderstedt near Hamburg, Germany.
Cornelia Groehl (left) meeting with Daniela Zimmermann of European Hospital
For Cornelia Groehl, president of Ethicon Deutschland, this inauguration was the successful conclusion of laborious negotiations. With enormous commitment she had convinced her US employers that Germany was the only logical choice in which to base an international mesh technology centre. The company-owned European Surgical Institute, with excellent contacts with top surgeons throughout Europe, ultimately may have helped to tip the scales in favour of Norderstedt.
The team of the new Mesh Technology Centre will focus on research, development and production of meshes for surgery and gynaecology. The meshes allow minimally invasive interventions – a reason for Cornelia Groehl to consider the 1.7 million building project as ‘an investment in the future’ since the implant market records double-digit growth.
The new lightweight meshes are high-tech artworks, barely resembling their unwieldy predecessors. The new generation of material integrates with weakened tissue, at the same time providing support without harming surrounding tissue or causing excessive pain. This technology, which offers immense benefits to the patients, is used about four million times a year globally to repair hernias and other soft tissue defects as well as in plastic and pelvic floor surgery.
Professor Volker Schumpelick
It’s no surprise that the surgeons themselves gave the decisive drive
for the development of the new meshes. In 1993, Professor Volker Schumpelick, head of surgery at University Hospital Aachen, and colleagues discussed the idea of flexible, lightweight and wide-meshed devices that could meet the body’s needs. They were certain that such a mesh would reduce infections and rejections and help patients to maintain full mobility. ‘People bend and bow and move, they exercise, they gain weight and women bear children. Our connective tissues offer enormous stability combined with impressive flexibility – and the materials that replace and support weakened tissues should ideally do the same,’ said Dr Schumpelick. Ethicon Products was then the only manufacturer prepared to risk investment in the development of such materials. ‘That was courageous,’ Prof Schumpelick observed. ‘As it went against the trend. I think it’s exactly this kind of courage that is the hallmark of a truly innovative company.’ Today, flexible high-tech meshes are an international standard.
In the future, the machines at the Worldwide Mesh Technology Centre will annually create over half a million surgical meshes, such as Vypro and Ultrapro. Different designs and combinations of materials will be offered for a wide range of functions: some implants meant to stay in tissue forever, others to dissolve in a set period.
Gary J Pruden, CEO of Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon Products
This article was published on 07/01/2008
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