Former Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak had previously urged the pelvic business to bet on expanding into tibial nerve treatments near the end of his tenure, which wrapped up in 2020, said Matt Stonehouse, vice president of research and development at Medtronic Pelvic Health. That resulted in the start of the Altaviva project. The implant’s development, largely based at the company’s Rice Creek facility, kicked off during the pandemic.
“We had to figure out how to do research and development during a time when the world was a little bit upside down,” Stonehouse said.
The result of that R&D is a silver implant marked by an active electrode and a return electrode, where energy streams into the ankle. In part, the device builds on a prior Medtronic implant inserted in the lower back stimulating the sacral nerve. But unlike its predecessor, Altaviva doesn’t have wires administering the stimulation.
Using a prosthetic lower leg, Medtronic’s Matt Stonehouse demonstrates how the Altaviva device is placed under the skin near a patient’s ankle. (Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
At the Rice Creek facility recently, Stonehouse used a prosthetic lower leg to demonstrate the procedure, which takes about 15 minutes once a patient is on the table. After making an incision of less than 2 centimeters on the inner ankle, he checked to see if he had reached the connective tissue called the fascia. Above this layer, he inserted a tool into the incision to create a pocket, and slid the implant in right under the skin.
The competitor’s device, Stonehouse said, goes below the fascia: “It’s just a more invasive procedure.”
Once the device turns on, which occurs before the patient leaves the office, it sends energy through the nerves to the bladder to regulate its wiring to better communicate with the brain.
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