Keeping Pace with Rapidly Developing Medical Catheters—A Medtech Makers Q&A

By Sean Fenske, Editor-in-Chief

Healthcare is getting smaller. That is, the devices and systems used within healthcare, and especially those that are functioning within the human body, are being developed to be smaller and less invasive. This trend offers an array of advantages to stakeholders with patients gaining the greatest benefits, from faster recovery times to less trauma.

With the miniaturization of these innovations, medtech OEMs need more efficient systems with which to deliver the technologies being used within the body. Typically, these involve a sophisticated catheter solution. Suppliers of these devices are not only being asked to develop the catheter but also to provide the supporting technologies that further enhance their function and usefulness.

To help further explain what his company is doing to help facilitate the development of these advanced catheters, Erich Stein, Sr. Engineering Services Director at Jabil, participated in the following Q&A. In this presentation, he addresses topics such as what’s driving catheter development, the challenges that still need to be overcome, and what the company’s new Cath Lab means for customers.

Sean Fenske: What’s driving catheter development? Why is it in such high demand?

Erich Stein: The simple answer is that less invasive procedures produce better outcomes throughout the entirety of the healthcare ecosystem. Several healthcare macro trends are driving demand for minimally invasive devices, particularly advanced catheters. Across cardiology, electrophysiology, neurology, structural heart, peripheral vascular, and robotic-assisted procedures, physicians continue to seek less invasive treatment options that reduce patient trauma, shorten recovery times, and improve procedural precision. Additionally, payors embrace the reduced cost burdens associated with shorter recovery times. These systemic demands are pushing device manufacturers to offer increasingly sophisticated catheter-based solutions at scale.

At the same time, technologies such as advanced imaging, sensors, ablation, mapping, navigation, and robotics are being incorporated into catheter platforms. As functionality increases, so does design complexity. Manufacturers are looking for ways to accelerate development cycles while maintaining performance, reliability, and manufacturability. The result is strong demand for partners like Jabil, uniquely positioned to combine catheter expertise, materials knowledge, miniaturization capabilities, electronics integration, and scalable manufacturing under one roof for catheters and their associated capital equipment.

Fenske: Are there specific areas of focus for improving catheters? Are device manufacturers indicating specific areas for innovation and/or improvement?

Stein: In our experience, working with the leading global medical device manufacturers, the industry is particularly focused on improving deliverability, precision, functionality, and manufacturability, without compromising quality.

On the clinical side, physicians want devices that can navigate increasingly complex anatomy while providing greater control and stability at the treatment site. This is driving innovation in steerability, shaft construction, tip design, and advanced balloon technologies. At the same time, OEMs are seeking opportunities to incorporate sensors, electronics, imaging, and data collection capabilities that can improve procedural outcomes and provide greater clinical insight.

From a development perspective, manufacturers are also focused on reducing iteration cycles. The ability to rapidly prototype, test, refine, and iterate designs has become a significant competitive advantage. That’s why we built Jabil’s Advanced Catheter Development Lab at our headquarters in St. Pete, Florida. As catheters become more complex, development teams want faster feedback on performance, manufacturability, and system integration before committing to large-scale production investments.

Fenske: What are the main challenges and limiting factors of continued advancement and development? Does it involve a component (or material), process, or both?

Stein: It’s absolutely both, and is driven by the fact that our vasculature pathways are small and the demand for more integrated technologies pushes the boundaries of component miniaturization and process precision

Modern catheters can combine polymers, metals, braided structures, coils, balloons, sensors, electronics, and increasingly sophisticated assemblies into devices that may be only a few millimeters in diameter. Integrating all of those elements while maintaining flexibility, torque response, durability, and manufacturability is a significant engineering challenge.

One of the biggest obstacles we see is transitioning from a successful prototype to a scalable manufacturing process. Many catheter designs rely on intricate, operator-dependent processes that can be difficult to reproduce consistently at volume. Manufacturers must optimize not only the device design but also the manufacturing methods used to produce it.

Material interactions can present additional complexity. Variables such as bonding performance, laser processing characteristics, shape retention, and component integration all influence final device performance. Success requires a deep understanding of both material science and process development, supported by rigorous testing and analysis. Fortunately, optimizing and scaling complex manufacturing processes are a core strength of Jabil, earned over decades of manufacturing across products as diverse as automotive systems, data servers, and home appliances. 

Fenske: Jabil invested substantially in developing the Cath Lab you mentioned earlier. Why was this an important focus, and what does it mean for Jabil customers?

Stein: Since Jabil is a contract manufacturer, we have a unique perspective that runs across leading medical device companies. With this overview, we see—and often experience—the common pain points, and we use these pain points to ensure investments maximize value to our customer base.

Historically, our customers often worked with multiple suppliers for design, prototyping, testing, subsystem development, and manufacturing. That fragmented approach can create delays, increase costs, and introduce risk during technology transfer. Jabil created the Advanced Catheter Development Lab to bring those activities closer together and help customers move more quickly from concept to commercialization.

Located within the Jabil Innovation Center, the lab allows engineering, prototyping, testing, manufacturing development, and adjacent system-level expertise to operate in a highly collaborative environment. Customers can rapidly iterate designs, evaluate performance, refine manufacturing processes, and prepare for production without the handoffs typically associated with multiple vendors.

For customers, that means faster development cycles, earlier visibility into manufacturing challenges, and a more seamless path toward commercialization.

Fenske: What equipment/capabilities does the Cath Lab provide? How does having a Failure Analysis Lab down the hall further enhance this offering?

Stein: The Advanced Catheter Development Lab was commissioned to support development, prototyping, testing, and manufacturing process optimization for complex catheters and minimally invasive devices. Capabilities include braiding, coiling, reflow and lamination, tip forming, hole punching, skiving, balloon forming and bonding, laser cutting, laser welding, nitinol shape setting, catheter shape setting, swaging, liner stretching, and parison stretching.

The facility also includes inspection, analysis, characterization, and testing technologies such as X-ray inspection, SEM/EDX, optical analysis, FTIR capabilities, and mechanical and electrical testing resources.

Equally important is the proximity of advanced failure analysis resources. When engineers can immediately investigate material behavior, bonding issues, structural defects, or performance anomalies, they can shorten root-cause investigations and accelerate design improvements. Instead of sending samples to external laboratories and waiting weeks for results, teams can obtain rapid feedback and make informed design decisions much earlier in the development cycle.

Fenske: As Jabil is primarily known as an electronics manufacturing services provider, how does this integrate with catheter development and manufacturing?

Stein: That perception actually highlights one of Jabil’s unique advantages.

Today’s advanced catheters increasingly incorporate electronics, sensors, connectivity, imaging components, and sophisticated control systems. Manufacturers need partners that understand not only catheter construction but also miniaturization, printed circuit assemblies, electromechanical integration, system design, and manufacturing at scale.

In discussions with our customers, we find that OEMs increasingly want expertise in electronics, polymers, mechanics, imaging, optics, and miniaturization in a single organization. Jabil’s heritage in electronics manufacturing enables us to integrate these technologies into next-generation minimally invasive devices while also ensuring compatibility with the capital equipment, consoles, and supporting systems that work alongside the catheter. This pairing is truly unique, allowing Jabil to provide our customers an ecosystem-based solution.

The intersection of catheter technology and electronics is becoming increasingly important, particularly as procedures become more data-driven, image-guided, and connected.

Fenske: Do you have any additional comments you’d like to share based on any of the topics we discussed or something you’d like to tell medical device manufacturers?

Stein: The catheter market is evolving rapidly, and the companies that succeed will be those that can shorten the distance between concept and manufacturing.

Too often, manufacturability is addressed late in the development cycle. Our experience shows that when design engineers, manufacturing engineers, test engineers, material specialists, supply chain experts, and quality professionals collaborate from the outset, programs move faster and scale more successfully.

The industry’s next generation of devices will demand higher levels of precision, miniaturization, functional integration, and performance than ever before. Meeting those expectations will require an ecosystem approach that brings together expertise in catheter development, materials, electronics, automation, testing, and scalable manufacturing. That’s exactly why Jabil continues to invest in capabilities such as the Advanced Catheter Development Lab and the broader innovation infrastructure that supports it. We’re helping customers solve complex engineering challenges today while helping them succeed in the next wave of minimally invasive medical technologies.

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