Shanghai Push Medical Device Technology Co Ltd in Putuo district will showcase its LACbes left atrial appendage occluder at the WorldSkills Expo in Shanghai from Sept 22 to 27.

Li Rui, the company's general manager, has spent 14 years developing the device. Delivered through a catheter to the left atrial appendage, the occluder expands like an umbrella to seal the site where blood clots readily form. If a clot becomes dislodged, it can cause a stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation.

For years, imported products dominated China's heart occluder market, with a single procedure costing tens of thousands of yuan. Key technologies, from structural design to processing techniques, were largely held by foreign manufacturers, while domestic companies had limited technological capabilities.

Seeking to develop a homegrown alternative, Li left a major domestic medical device manufacturer in 2012 and founded his own company in Putuo.

The breakthrough came from an unexpected source: the cocklebur, a barbed fruit from Li's hometown. Its fine barbs cling firmly while releasing cleanly, inspiring a design for anchoring the occluder to a heart wall just 1 to 3 millimeters thick. After seven years of trials, LACbes received approval from China's National Medical Products Administration as one of the first domestically developed products in its category with fully independent intellectual property rights.

By 2023, LACbes had established itself as one of the leading domestic brands, having been used in 24,742 procedures. Its price was 20 to 30 percent lower than that of imported products, while the insurance reimbursement rate was 80 percent, compared with 70 percent for imported products.

Source: Shanghai Putuo Media Center