St Jude Medical receives EU backing for Athena DBS tool

St Jude Medical has received European regulatory clearance for its new Athena programmer tool for deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy management.

The notebook PC-based unit has been granted CE Mark accreditation for use as an interface for St Jude DBS products such as Libra, LibraXP and Brio, allowing clinicians to set or adjust therapeutic parameters.

It has been optimised for ease of use, with a 22.6 cm full colour touchscreen which displays all leads and programming information at the same time, as well as a convenient clinician notes section.

The unit also features comprehensive data management capacity, with patient databases able to hold up to 200,000 patient records.

Chris Chavez, president of St Jude Medical's neuromodulation division, said: "The Athena programmer addresses several unmet needs and presents physicians with a unique, new option in programming and the management of deep brain stimulation devices to advance this therapy."

Earlier this month, St Jude Medical announced that it is to purchase a stake in the cardiac medical technology specialist CardioMEMS, with an option to acquire the company at a later date.