Accellent on Leading Edge of Medical Technology
Published Apr 16, 2006
Wheat Ridge-based Accellent specializes in cardiology-based devices and has a large base of customers around the world.
One of the medical industry’s local leaders in technology had its start in promoting a fashion trend.
Accellent, an Wheat Ridge-based firm specializing in devices used in cardiology procedures, was once Star Guide Corp., a locally owned company that manufactured guides used in creating corduroy materials.
“In lean times, when trends changed and corduroy wasn’t in demand, the company started taking medical manufacturing work,” says Bill Novitsky, a controller in Accellent’s Wheat Ridge facility.
Through many corporate changes, the company enhanced its new focus on medical industry work and, today, is part of Accellent’s cardiology group.
Accellent, with its 21 locations and customers throughout the world, is known as the single largest provider of outsourcing to the medical device industry.
“Accellent tries to offer the customer one-stop shopping,” Novitsky says. “We have different capabilities at different facilities. Ultimately, our goal is to take a customer’s need, get the materials and produce a finished product.”
The Wheat Ridge facility specializes in precision wire work for surgical applications and medical devices.
“Because of these technologies, many surgeries aren’t so invasive anymore,” Novitsky says.
Treatments for aneurisms and angioplasties are just two of the many procedures that utilize these precision guide wires. Many of the wires manufactured and assembled here are used in inner-vascular procedures such as implanting stents.
Most of the assembly is done by hand, and the wires range in size from those that are about the diameter of a human hair to others that are the diameter of a paper clip.
“This is such small, detailed work that it takes highly skilled employees to do this and not damage the wires,” says George Archambault, Accellent manufacturing manager.
Accellent can supply the components that go into these devices and also can complete some of the assembly work for its customers, which include large medical companies such as Boston Scientific and Medtronics.
Sometimes, customers already have a blueprint of what they require, and Accellent then creates the product.
Novitsky says the Wheat Ridge location – with 140 employees in a 40,000-square-foot building – assembles finished components, too, which can then be taken to an FDA-certified supplier for final assembly.
“We can do everything from scraping and cutting wire to grinding, forming and assembling parts,” Novitsky explains.
The burgeoning medical device market is growing eons beyond what the corduroy market could have experienced, and Accellent’s Wheat Ridge location’s sales grew 50 percent from 2004 to 2005, Novitsky says.
“This building is expandable, so we can take advantage of that as we continue to see growth,” Novitsky says. “There are always opportunities as the market develops and new technologies come out, and there are always improvements to enhance.”
Story by Kari K. Ridge
Photo by Antony Boshier
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