Junkosha introduced a new product category at MD&M Midwest in Minneapolis, calling it Wrapped Liner: a catheter liner formed by wrapping PTFE film around a mandrel rather than extruding a complete tube.
The company said the category draws on decades of work in fluoropolymer technologies and applies its proprietary PTFE tape engineering and wrapping technology. According to Junkosha, the resulting liner platform is designed to combine high tensile strength, thin wall construction and flexibility.
A different route to the liner wall
Conventional liners are made either by dip-coating PTFE and building it up on a mandrel, or by extruding PTFE and supplying it as tubing cut to length. In Junkosha's approach, the wall itself is created from wrapped film; by engineering the properties of the tape, the company says it can pursue a thin, uniform wall thickness while retaining strength.
That combination is presented as a design-freedom argument rather than a purely dimensional one. A thinner, stronger liner could allow catheter engineers to specify finer braid or coil wire, or to reallocate space elsewhere in the device construction.
Steve Maxson, founder of Maxson InSight Services, said in the announcement that catheter engineers often describe profile as king, but that a low-profile design involves more than reducing wall thickness: the device 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 real opportunity lies in how thin-wall construction and strength work together to change how engineers approach catheter design.
Framed as a scalable platform
Junkosha describes this balance of thin, strong and more uniform properties as the linchpin for new catheter development, potentially creating greater flexibility in how reinforcement is configured. The Wrapped Liner category is intended as a scalable platform supporting a growing portfolio of solutions tailored to evolving catheter requirements.
Kevin LaDow, chief sales officer of Junkosha USA, said current liners are either dip-coated PTFE built up on a mandrel or extruded PTFE supplied as tubing cut to length. Heading into 2027, he said, there is a need for a new liner category that is not only manufactured differently but also offers distinct benefits for small-format catheter OEMs.
The company said the approach extends the possibilities of catheter design for next-generation devices aimed at enhanced flexibility and a broader range of anatomies that may be accessed and treated. The announcement did not include specifications, availability timelines or pricing for the new category.