Wallaby Medical Esperance™ Aspiration Catheter Approved by Ministry of Food and Drug Safety of South Korea

Laguna Hills, Shanghai & Bochum, Sep 9, 2022—Wallaby Medical, an innovative global medical technology company developing and commercializing neurovascular interventional products for treating stroke, recently announced that its Esperance™ Aspiration Catheter (Esperance™) has been approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety of South Korea.  

With the population aging across the globe, the prevalence of stroke is on the rise. According to the 2018 Stroke Statistics of Korea, 1 in 40 adults experiences stroke, with 232 out of 100,000 suffering from this disease every year. As per the 2019 statistics on the causes of deaths released by the Korean National Statistical Office, 42 out of 100,000 deaths were due to cerebrovascular disease (CVD), making it the fourth leading cause of death, following malignant neoplasms, cardiovascular diseases and pneumonia [1]. 

The Esperance™Aspiration Catheter is designed to treat ischemic stroke, such that it is flexible enough to reach occluded cerebral blood vessels and is used with negative pressure to aspirate clots out of the vessel. Despite the simple principle of operation, it is exceedingly difficult to design and manufacture an aspiration catheter with kink resistance, an ultra-thin inner liner, a pushable proximal shaft, and flexible transition zones.

Ischemic stroke has the highest risk among all types of stroke. South Korea has implemented a national health insurance service (NHIS) in the form of social insurance funded through compulsory contributions from all citizens, divided into medical aid and NHIS-covered categories. Patients with poorer socioeconomic conditions and those from smaller more remote residential areas have less access to medical institutions, and the quality of care for stroke is worsened during both acute and chronic phases of stroke [1]. Esperance™Aspiration Catheter has proven to be an effective product to treat ischemic stroke, and can help mitigate the onerous burden posed by stroke in South Korea.

1. Dougho Park, Su Yun Lee, Eunhwan Jeong, Daeyoung Hong, Mun-Chul Kim, Jun Hwa Choi, Eun Kyong Shin, Kang Ju Son, & Hyoung Seop Kim. The effects of socioeconomic and geographic factors on chronic phase long-term survival after stroke in South Korea. Scientific Reports, 12, 4327 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08025-2