Junkosha announced a new Wrapped Liner category for catheter liners at MD&M Midwest in Minneapolis. The company said the category draws on decades of expertise in fluoropolymer technologies and is intended to give catheter designers and manufacturers an alternative approach to liner construction.
In the Wrapped Liner process, Junkosha wraps PTFE film around a mandrel to build the liner wall rather than extruding a complete tube. The company applies proprietary PTFE tape engineering and wrapping technology to create a platform designed to combine high tensile strength, thin wall construction and flexibility. According to Junkosha, engineering the tape properties allows it to target a thin, uniform wall thickness while maintaining strength.
The company says the construction gives catheter designers greater freedom to select finer braid or coil wire or to reallocate space elsewhere in the catheter. Those choices can affect how a low-profile device balances wall thickness, reinforcement and flexibility.
Design considerations
Steve Maxson, founder of Maxson InSight Services, said catheter engineers often describe profile as king, but a low-profile design involves more than reducing wall thickness. In comments included in the announcement, he said a catheter still has to resist kinking and ovalization while keeping the flexibility its application needs. With extruded and film-cast liners already available in very thin walls, he said the opportunity is in how thin-wall construction and strength work together to change how engineers approach catheter design.
Junkosha said that balance is central to new catheter development because it may allow greater flexibility in how reinforcement is configured. The company is positioning Wrapped Liner as a scalable platform intended to support a growing portfolio of solutions as catheter requirements evolve.
Liner market positioning
Kevin LaDow, chief sales officer of Junkosha USA Inc., said current catheter liners are typically either dip-coated PTFE built up on a mandrel or extruded PTFE supplied as cut-to-length tubing. 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 unique benefits for small-format catheter OEMs.
According to Junkosha, the approach extends the possibilities of catheter design to support next-generation medical devices intended to enhance flexibility and broaden the range of anatomies that may be accessed and treated. The company presented Wrapped Liner as a platform category rather than a single finished product, and said it is designed to scale across a growing portfolio of liner solutions. The announcement focused on the construction approach and intended design benefits.