SOTA Medical Products and SafeOp Surgical Ink Distribution Agreement

State of the Art Medical Products Inc. (SOTA) has signed a three-year distribution agreement with SafeOp Surgical Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, SOTA will have the exclusive rights to distribute SafeOp’s EPAD portable neuromonitoring system to healthcare facilities in the New York metropolitan area (Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island), New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The EPAD system enables the detection of nerve damage and residual paralysis during surgical procedures.

“For over 30 years, SOTA has been bringing to our customers cutting-edge technology products that can provide both better patient care and a financial advantage,” said Keith Lambie, president and founder of SOTA. “SafeOp’s EPAD system is just such a product with its ability to deliver a new and needed level of patient safety to surgeries where such monitoring had not been cost-effective. As with all the products we represent, we’ve done our homework. We anticipate great success in selling EPAD.”
 
SafeOp’s EPAD system was developed particularly for the rapid detection of Positioning Effect (PE). PE is a frequent complication of some surgeries (e.g., orthopedic, general, cardiac, or urological surgery), whereby peripheral nerves may be damaged due to unrecognized extended compression or stretching, or compromise of their blood supply. The EPAD system also allows monitoring of the neuromuscular junction to help detect residual paralysis, which may occur when paralyzing agents have not sufficiently worn off at the end of surgery. It offers real-time feedback, allowing caregivers to adjust the patient’s position in time to avoid nerve injury or to intervene when residual paralysis is present.
 
“This relationship is a key step in bringing to market our alternative to expensive insourced- and outsourced-driven neuromonitoring for certain spine surgeries,” said Gene Cattarina, SafeOp president and CEO. “We’re delighted to have entered into this agreement with SOTA, an organization with an uncanny knack for identifying and successfully marketing new medical technologies. They are an ideal fit to distribute the EPAD system in one of the most concentrated hospital markets in the country.”
 
State of the Art Medical Products is a specialty medical sales and distribution company. SOTA’s management team has more than 75 years of management, sales and clinical experience. To properly support its manufacturers and its customers, SOTA has evolved into three separate sales teams servicing three specific markets: Advanced Surgical Technologies, Cardiovascular/Interventional Radiology and Surgical.
 
SafeOp Surgical Inc. is a Hunt Valley, Md.-based medical device company that has developed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved EPAD system. The EPAD system enables basic neurological monitoring in a wide array of surgical procedures where full monitoring, which requires the continuous presence of a technologist and neurologist, may not be indicated, cost-effective or feasible. SafeOp currently markets the EPAD system to medical centers throughout the United States.