Avery Biomedical Devices

Avery Biomedical Devices is a biomedical engineering and device company that invented the Mark IV Breathing Pacemaker.

Specializing in the production and distribution of breathing pacemakers, Avery Biomedical Devices supplies the only commercially available Phrenic Nerve Pacing device in the United States. It is also the only FDA-approved phrenic pacing device available for implantation in children. The device is placed as an alternative to the traditional ventilator in patients with quadriplegia, central sleep apnea, diaphragm paralysis, and other respiration maladies, so long as the patient's respiratory system still has some residual function.

Mark IV Breathing Pacemaker

The Avery Breathing Pacemaker System ("Mark IV Breathing Pacemaker) is a phrenic nerve stimulator, also called a diaphragm pacemaker. Phrenic nerve stimulation is a technique whereby a nerve stimulator provides electrical stimulation of the phrenic nerve to cause diaphragmatic contraction. It consists of surgically implanted receivers and electrodes mated to an external transmitter by antennas worn over the implanted receivers. An external battery-operated transmitter sends radiofrequency energy to the receiver through an antenna, which is placed on the skin overlying the receiver. The receiver converts this energy into an electric current that is directed to the phrenic nerve in order to stimulate the nerve, thereby causing contraction of the diaphragm. The surgery can be performed via either a cervical or thoracic approach.

Phrenic pacing provides ventilatory support for patients with chronic respiratory insufficiency whose diaphragm, lungs, and phrenic nerves have residual function.

Availability

There are currently two commercially distributed phrenic nerve stimulators: one by Avery Biomedical Devices, Inc. (USA), and one by Atrotech OY (Finland). The Avery device (“Mark IV Breathing Pacemaker”) is distributed worldwide, while the Atrotech device (“Atrostim Jukka”) has limited distribution and is not available in the United States.

As the only phrenic nerve stimulator available in the United States, the Avery device can be implanted by specialist surgical teams in nineteen states and sixteen foreign countries: Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Italy, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, China, Iraq, Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and South Africa.