Olympus Spiration® Valve System Earns Silver 2020 Edison Award

CENTER VALLEY, Pa., (July 15, 2020) – Olympus, a global technology leader in designing and delivering innovative solutions for medical and surgical procedures, announced today its Spiration® Valve System (SVS) won Silver in the Medical category of the 2020 Edison Awards™. The SVS is a removable device used for the minimally invasive treatment of severe emphysema. The Edison Awards is an annual competition honoring excellence in new product and service development, marketing, human-centered design, and innovation.

Spiration® Valves are placed into selected airways of emphysematous lung during a short bronchoscopic procedure. Once in place, the valves redirect air away from diseased parts of the lung, allowing healthier lung tissue to expand and function more effectively. This reduction in lung volume has been shown to allow patients with severe emphysema to breathe more easily and experience improvement in their quality of life.ⁱ

“We used to go dancing, we used to go bowling, but… Slowly, we started noticing that I couldn’t breathe as much and I was coughing more and so we stopped going dancing so much. I couldn’t cope with life anymore,” said Lucie Leduc, who suffers from severe emphysema, before she was treated with the SVS as part of the EMPROVE clinical trial. “I got the treatment and the next day, my husband and I went shopping. There are so many things that have changed since then. I can drive now, we go dancing, that was a big part of our life. We are back on our motorcycle. We can do what we used to do. It’s like a miracle because it changes your life.”

“Dyspnea, or shortness of breath, is the most significant limitation affecting an emphysematic patient’s quality of life,” said Dr. Gerard Criner, Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Thoracic Medicine and Surgery at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Temple University, which led the EMPROVE clinical trial that led to FDA approval of the device in December 2018. “When we help alleviate dyspnea, we improve social function and work productivity, which is important not only for patients, but also for their children and grandchildren, their spouses, and all of the people around them.”

“We are honored to have won this notable award,” said Randy Clark, President, Medical Systems Group, Olympus Corporation of the Americas. “The minimally invasive SVS treatment is helping many who suffer from the debilitating symptoms of severe emphysema. Olympus is proud to offer groundbreaking therapeutic medical devices like the SVS to help make patients’ lives happier and more fulfilling.”

Edison Award nominations are reviewed by the Edison Awards Steering Committee. and voted on by an independent judging panel of more than 3,000 professionals from the fields of product development, design, engineering, science, marketing and education, including professional organizations representing a wide variety of industries and disciplines. For more information, please visit http://www.edisonawards.com/.

# # #

About Olympus Medical Systems Group
The Olympus Medical Systems Group works with health care professionals to combine our innovative capabilities in medical technology, therapeutic intervention, and precision manufacturing with their skills to deliver diagnostic, therapeutic and minimally invasive procedures to improve clinical outcomes, reduce overall costs and enhance quality of life for patients. For more information, visit medical.olympusamerica.com.

ⁱ Criner GJ, Delage A, Voelker K, et al. Improving Lung Function in Severe Heterogenous Emphysema with the Spiration Valve System (EMPROVE): A Multicenter, Open-Label, Randomized, Controlled Trial. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2019;200(11):1354-1362. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201902-0383OC.