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History

From Specialty Blades…

IncisionTech is a division of Specialty Blades, Inc. in Staunton. Specialty Blades was founded in 1985 to address the needs of industries, original equipment manufacturers, and medical design engineers who required high performance, razor sharp custom-made cutting blades. Specialty Blades developed a proprietary CNC sharpening process that featured precisely controlled, multiple step grinding and honing sequences similar to that used on razor blades, but optimized for maximum product flexibility. Proven success in developing high performance cutting solutions spilled over into the sophisticated medical device market with the continued penetration of MIS (Minimally Invasive Surgery) techniques. The increasing need for smaller cutting components with razor sharp edges on unique materials created significant growth opportunities for Specialty Blades during the late 90's.

To IncisionTech…

We are a Tier 1 Contract Manufacturer & Trusted Strategic Device OEM Partner...

Recognizing the pressing need to serve the growing medical device market in new and unique ways, Specialty Blades created IncisionTech in 2005 with a new mission - To enable better patient outcomes through innovative incision technologies. As the Center Of Excellence for all incisional components, IncisionTech's core competence is providing expert solutions for surgical cutting, piercing, and delivery system applications.

In January, 2008, Specialty Blades, Inc. and its medical device division IncisionTech completed the acquisition of Popper and Sons, Inc. The acquisition of Popper, a leading specialty needle and metal tubing medical device manufacturing company, makes the combined company the leading contract manufacturer of cutting and piercing devices for the medical device industry.

"This acquisition supports our strategy of focusing the value we bring to medical device companies on improving devices through functional expertise. While we now have one of the broadest arrays of manufacturing capabilities, our unique value proposition lies in our ability to work with OEMs to enhance the performance of their instrumentation, leading to better outcomes for patients" said Specialty Blades President and CEO Peter Harris. "From laser cutting and welding to CNC sharpening to EDM to tubing fabrication to electrochemistry, we believe we are the only tier one device manufacturer with such focused functional device expertise, differentiating us from other contract manufacturing generalists." The combined companies will have locations in Virginia, New York and Rhode Island.

In the coming months our engineering and operations teams will be working to develop new capabilities that will enable us to provide more complete solutions for your critical surgical components. Some the new product areas that we have under development are:

Expanded capabilities

• Cutting Edge Technology Focus (grinding, machining, electro-chemical, sharpening, etc.) - Cutting edge geometries
  
• Point Technology Focus (electro-chemical, machining, grinding, pointing, etc.) - Point geometries
  
• Micro Manufacturing Focus (laser, edm, sharpening etc.)
  
• Micro Measurement Lab
  
• Cut Force & Penetration Testing
  
• Sharpness measurement
  
• Value Added Sub-assemblies
  
  • Laser Welding
    
  • Overmolding
    
• Rapid Prototyping (1 week delivery)
  
• Precision Machining
  
• Custom Packaging
  

New Technology

We have just been awarded our second US Patent for a novel blade sharpening method! This new technology is already in production and benefiting our customers.

Other recent technological developments include:

• Extreme Profile Grinder for Cylindrical and Point Grinding
• New Wire EDM and Laser-Marking Capability
• CNC Programmable Forming Capability
• Completion of a leading-edge IncisionLab to aid in cutting edge and pointed tip qualification and new process development
• An Edge Enhancement and Pointing Process optimized to more precisely de-burr certain types of cutting edge and point configurations
• Environmentally friendly, citric acid passivation processing for use on most stainless steels
• Custom tube sharpening machinery
• State-of-the-art programmable video inspection systems to consistently measure blades at up to 480X magnification and resolution of .0001"mm
• High precision laser cutting machinery, allowing quick turnaround times for prototyping and low volume manufacturing runs

Technology improvements continue to be at the forefront of IncisionTech’s strategic plan, and the company is committed to continually seeking new methods of manufacture, sharpening, and pointing to better serve the needs of the medical device OEM.