The First Workshop on Active Implantable Medical Devices took place at in Punta del Este, Uruguay last Friday (March 1st 2024) as part of the LASCAS 2024 meeting.
The day started with Marcelo Barú (Biotronik) giving a very informative presentation on the current state, trends, and future directions of Spinal Cord Stimulation.
The day continued with Pedro Arzuaga (one of the original members of the CCC Engineering Group, and now Director of Impulse Dynamics Development in Montevideo) giving an historical overview of 50 years of AIMD development in Uruguay.
Next was a panel discussion with participants from the AIMD Industry in Uruguay. Pedro Arzuaga (Impulse Dynamics), Javier Schandy (Focus), Stefano Ghiardo (Integer), and Martín Zúñiga (Hattrick) led a conversation on the formation of an Uruguayan cluster of companies active in the development of AIMDs.
During lunch we had the opportunity to see the work that Impulse Dynamics, Focus, Integer, and Hattrick do in Uruguay and chat with their engineers. There was a simultaneous poster session featuring papers on AIMD design.
After lunch, I presented my talk on “AIMD-based Therapies of Heart Failure.”
Then, Federico De Mula (Integer) presented on “Trends in Active Implantable Medical Devices).
This was followed by a talk by Victor Pikov from Medipace on the OpenNerve open-source implantable neuromodulation platform being developed by Medipace in cooperation with Focus, Coforce, Med-Ally, and USC.
Lastly, there was an interesting panel discussion moderated by Nicolás Barabino (Focus, Ad Corpus MedTech) on “Bridging the Gap Between the AIMD Industry and the Academia.”
This was a very pleasant day to get together with old friends and learn about what’s at the very cutting edge of the AIMD Industry. Thank you Dr. Matías Miguez and Dr. Pablo Pérez-Nicoli, General Co-Chairs of LASCAS 2024, for organizing this amazing event!