SEPTEMBER 2015
H
business elite canada
3
By Emily Innes
Produced byTom Cunningham
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T
he founders of Intellijoint Surgical had one criterion for their final
year engineering project at the University of Waterloo in Ontario:
develop something novel.
Armen Bakirtzian, Richard Fanson, and Andre Hladio successfully
accomplished this in 2007 with their invention of a medical smart tool,
intelli
joint
HIP
TM.
The device consists of miniature sensors that assist
surgeons in the accurate selection and alignment of implants during hip
replacement surgery.
“I was doing an option in biomechanics that required a bio-related fourth
year design project…luckily I have an orthopaedic surgeon for a father who
introduced me to an unsolved problem,” said Bakirtzian, CEO and director
of Intellijoint Surgical. “I went to watch a hip replacement with my father
and he explained very clearly to me that when he does a hip replacement,
similar to other orthopaedic surgeons, he selects and aligns the hip implant
using his professional judgment and eyeballing. Unfortunately, they are
subject to making mistakes.”
