Introducing the Houdini® Catheter,

Streamlining guidewire advancement
for a more predictable process

A remarkable advance for efficiency

Placement of the guidewire through vascular occlusions has always been a testament to your skill, not the tools you have available. It can be an unpredictable hurdle to getting down to real business. Until the wire is placed, time stands still in the room. Now, Cruzar Medsystems has developed a means of making guidewire placement more routine and efficient so that the procedure can continue.

The Houdini Catheter is a dual-lumen intravascular catheter intended for percutaneous use in the iliac, femoral, ilio-femoral and popliteal arteries. It faciltates guidewire advancement through challenging environments in a reliable, efficient manner using a balloon-actuated distal anchoring system coupled with a unique everting lumen with TrueForwardTM technology. This proprietary technology can give the operator a greater mechanical advantage at the tip of the guidewire even in the most discrete regions of the vasculature. The result? Now the tool at your disposal can be more in line with your skill.

  • Accommodates a standard commercially available 0.014” – 0.035” guidewire to access discrete regions of the peripheral vasculature
  • TrueForward™ technology grips the tip of the guidewire, creating pressure that simulates “thumb and forefinger” control
  • Distal tip incorporates a radiopaque marker for visualization under fluoroscopy
  • Once accessed, guidewires may be exchanged within the catheter
  • Everting distal lumen may reduce shear force when compared to standard catheters

 

A reliable and predictable
way to set the wire and
move onto the procedure

The go-to device to access the region, set the guidewire and move on to the procedure in a reliable, efficient manner

The curvature of arteries combined with the distance from the entrance site to the target area greatly reduces the tip force of an unsupported guidewire.

 

Houdini’s balloon-actuated distal anchoring system and the unique everting lumen with TrueForwardTM technology may give the operator a greater mechanical advantage at the tip of the guidewire even in the most discreet regions of the vasculature.

The Houdini Catheter is located proximal to the targeted area. A radiopaque marker at the tip provides visualization under fluoroscopy. The balloon catheter is inflated to 6atm with radiopaque contrast media using a standard manual indeflator to anchor the catheter against the inner arterial wall. Once anchored, internal pressurization is then transferred to the everting inner lumen.

The operator advances the guidewire by applying pressure to the plunger, which connects to the base of the everting distal lumen. This engages the TrueForward system and transfers the pressure applied by the operator to the distal lumen—not the vessel—enabling it to grip and stabilize the guidewire at the very tip.
The TrueForwardTM System advances the guidewire with the unique rolling action of the everting distal lumen that delivers support to the guidewire. This gripping action advances the guidewire forward with a focused tip force that simulates the action of holding the wire with your thumb and forefinger.

David M. Tornatore
CEO

Mr. Tornatore has over 26 years of medical device sales and marketing experience including leadership roles with both Boston Scientific Corporation (BSC) and Johnson & Johnson (J & J). Mr. Tornatore served as U.S. Sales & Marketing Manager for LuMend Inc., another medical device start-up focused on the endovascular CTO market and lead that company to its’ successful acquisition by Cordis Endovascular / J & J.

Mr. Tornatore also spent 6 years in leadership with Cardiovascular Systems Inc. (CSI) leading that company’s strategic partnership with Asahi Intecc focused on crossing technology for the peripheral market. Mr. Tornatore also served as Director of Clinical Development at Inari Medical and helped lead that start-up company’s efforts to the successful completion of its’ FLARE Trial and Inari’s subsequent 510(k) clearance of the first non-lytic based endovascular therapy for Pulmonary Embolism.

Mr. Tornatore is also currently the Founder & President of Trifecta Medical (LLC).

Mr. Tornatore received his B.A. from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA.

Michael Glennon
Director

Michael J. Glennon is currently the Director of Cruzar Medsystems having served as President and CEO. He has taken the Houdini Catheter from concept through design development, regulatory processes, FDA clearance and into the market.

Previously, Mike was instrumental in the launch and rapid growth of VasoView, the first endoscopic vessel harvesting technology, which became the standard of care in coronary bypass surgery.

He was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Vortex Medical from its inception in 2008 until its acquisition in October 2012 by AngioDynamics.

In addition to his responsibilities at Cruzar, Mike has served as President, CEO and a director of Saphena Medical since February 2013, as a director of Kaleidoscope Medical since January 2013 and as PAVmed’s Vice Chairman and a Director since October 2014. From 2005 to 2007, Mike was Senior Vice President – Sales and Marketing for Accellent Inc., a market-leading provider of outsourced precision manufacturing and engineering services to the medical device industry. Accellent was a portfolio company of DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and was acquired in 2005 by KKR and Bain Capital.

Mr. Glennon received his B.S. in Business Administration from the University of New Hampshire.

Albert K. Chin, M.D.
Founder and Principal

Dr. Chin has served as a member of PAVmed’s Medical Advisory Board since January 2015. Dr. Chin is a prominent medical device inventor and serves as a co-founding Partner and Chief Innovation Officer at Pavilion Medical Innovations. He is a principal at PMI portfolio companies Saphena Medical and Cruzar Medsystems and at nVision Medical and ChemoFilter, two additional early stage medical device companies.

From 1994 to 2009, he served as Vice President of Research and Chief Innovation Officer at Guidant Cardiac Surgery, which later became Maquet Cardiovascular. In 1989 he co-founded Origin Medsystems, which was acquired in 1994 by Eli Lilly for $150 million and subsequently spun out as part of Guidant. Prior to that, he worked with medical device entrepreneur Dr. Thomas Fogarty. Dr. Chin has 195 issued patents and 12 commercialized products spanning cardiac, vascular, orthopedic, gynecologic, urologic and general surgery. These include the Fogarty-Chin Linear Extrusion Catheter (Edwards Lifesciences, 1983), the HeartString Aortic Seal (Guidant 2003, now Maquet) and the VenaPax (Saphena Medical, 2014). His products have generated over $3.0 billion in revenue and have been used in millions of patients. The VasoView Endoscopic Vessel Harvest (Guidant 1996, now Maquet) device is the standard of care for the removal of the saphenous vein for use in coronary bypass surgery.

Dr. Chin has 54 peer-reviewed publications and has lectured around the world on his inventions and innovation in general. He is the holder of 195 issued US patents. In 2007, he received the Stanford University, Emerging Entrepreneurs in Biomedical Technology, Ideals of Entrepreneurship Award. He serves as a mentor in the T1 Catalyst Program at the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Chin received his surgical training at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School (Parkland Memorial Hospital). He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and his M.D. from the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.

Tom Kramer
Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Kramer has over 25 years of experience in medical device development and has over 20 issued patents in medical devices. Prior to co-founding Cruzar he founded Sirius Engineering LLC, which has developed Cruzar’s Houdini Catheter System, Vortex Medical’s AngioVac (acquired by Angio Dynamics), and Kaleidoscope Medical’s IVC filter/delivery system. Mr. Kramer also co-founded InnoVein, Inc. and serves as its COO. Prior to starting Sirius, he served as the VP of Clinical Affairs for Hansen Medical, Director of R&D and Clinical for Broncus Technologies, and Director of R&D and QA for Guidant Corporation. Mr. Kramer holds a BSME from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a MSME from San Diego State University.

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412.965.6673