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Partnering with the medical community for innovative micro-visualization solutions
The degree of customizability of any endoscope and/or endoscope tower is intimately connected with the materials used in, basic design of, and manufacturing processes used to create that endoscope or tower. Traditional endoscope manufacturers, particularly for micro-visualization (via endoscopes 1.5mm diameter and below) generally use:
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Materials (such as SELFOC™ lens technology) which can only be rigid, are very fragile and are difficult to customize.
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Designs which offer such tight tolerances at small diameters that re-design options are limited
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Redesign procedures that are slow and costly
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Endoscope structures that are often designed to work only with proprietary endoscope towers or other video imaging systems
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Endoscope towers that rely heavily on image-enhancement software, extremely high-powered light sources, and other large, heavy, and/or difficult- to-customize components that seek to compensate for relatively poor images
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Manufacturing processes that require major retooling for any new design, again adding time and expense to the redesign process
Manufacturers limited by issues such as these may be able to hand-build a small number of prototype or custom endoscope solutions, at a premium cost. But they are unable to move smoothly, rapidly, and cost-effectively through a real-time design and redesign process, and then to prototype, and then volume manufacturing of quality micro-endoscopes. In other words, their endoscopes are not truly customizable.
In addition, traditional endoscope towers include high-powered light sources, de-pixelization software, and other devices which seek to compensate for the relatively poor image quality produced by traditional micro-endoscopes. This makes the towers heavy, bulky, extremely difficult to customize, and very expensive (generally $30,000 to $50,000 for a basic tower).
By contrast, BioVision’s micro-endoscopes and SurgView™ portable endoscope towers use:
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Materials (such as custom-designed image fibers and micro-lenses and micro-prisms manufactured using proprietary processes) that allow virtually unlimited flexibility in custom design and redesign
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Designs which seek to allow tolerances at any given diameter that can accommodate custom requests (such as articulation, tooling space in the scope channel, and so on)
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Streamlined, proprietary design procedures that radically shorten the design and redesign process
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A modular endoscope structure that is designed to be compatible with all standard endoscope cameras – although visualization quality improves even further compared with traditional micro-endoscopes when BioVision scopes are optimized for performance with the BioVision SurgView™ tower
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A streamlined, compact, portable endoscope tower – the SurgView™ – that is freed by the quality of BioVision scopes from the need to enhance sub-optimal images, and thus allows custom camera mounts, and other design options in a light, portable package that sells for a fraction of the cost of traditional endoscope towers.
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Manufacturing that combines optimized world-wide sourcing of key materials and components with proprietary manufacturing processes and technologies to slash costs and improve time-to-market as compared with traditional endoscopes
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Intensive training, both in the US and abroad, for our global manufacturing affiliates in our proprietary manufacturing techniques, in FDA-compliant quality assurance, and in our corporate mission
Together, this proprietary expertise and shared vision allows us to offer the most customizable micro-endoscopes on the market. We can offer endoscopes down to 0.4mm outer diameter in rigid, semi-rigid, and flexible versions, in most cases also with options for articulation and steering. |
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