Junkosha has introduced a new catheter liner category, called Wrapped Liner, at MD&M Midwest in Minneapolis. The company said the category represents a different approach to liner construction and draws on its decades of experience in fluoropolymer technologies. The announcement focused on the liner construction platform rather than a specific commercial product.
According to Junkosha, the platform applies its proprietary PTFE tape engineering and wrapping technology. It is intended as an alternative for catheter liners that combines high tensile strength, thin-wall construction and flexibility.
In the manufacturing process, PTFE film is wrapped around a mandrel to form the liner wall instead of extruding a complete tube. Junkosha said that by engineering the tape’s properties, it can design a liner platform intended to achieve a thin, uniform wall thickness with exceptional strength. The company positions this as giving catheter designers and manufacturers more freedom to choose finer braid or coil wire or to reallocate space elsewhere in the catheter construction.
Design trade-offs
Steve Maxson, founder of Maxson InSight Services, said catheter engineers often describe profile as king, but that low-profile design involves more than reducing wall thickness. In comments provided by Junkosha, he said a catheter still has to resist kinking and ovalization while retaining the flexibility its application requires. He noted that extruded and film-cast liners are already available with very thin walls, and said the opportunity lies in how thin-wall construction and strength work together to change how engineers approach catheter design.
Junkosha said that balance of thin, strong and more uniform properties is central to new catheter development because it may create greater flexibility in how reinforcement is configured. The Wrapped Liner category is intended as a scalable platform supporting a growing portfolio of solutions for evolving catheter requirements.
Comparison with current liners
Kevin LaDow, chief sales officer of Junkosha USA Inc., said current catheter liners are either dip-coated PTFE built up on a mandrel or extruded PTFE supplied as tubing cut to length. He said that as the industry heads into 2027, there is a need for a new liner category that is not only manufactured differently but also provides distinct benefits for small-format catheter OEMs.
Through the new approach, Junkosha said it aims to extend the possibilities of catheter design and support development of next-generation medical devices intended to enhance flexibility and broaden the range of anatomies that may be accessed and treated. The company’s claims concern the platform’s intended design attributes; clinical performance and adoption were not reported in the announcement.