Can a Covered Stent Ever Deliver Like Bare Metal?

In endovascular engineering, tradeoffs are often treated as immutable laws. One of the most persistent is the assumption that clinicians must choose between the structural benefits of a covered stent and the effortless navigation of a bare‑metal one.

In practice, this compromise shows up in the interventional suite every day.

When physicians navigate tortuous anatomy,tight S‑curves in dialysis access circuits or heavily calcified peripheral arteries,trackability is everything. A device that resists anatomy, straightens vessels, or “pushes back” can turn a routine procedure into a high‑risk intervention.

Covered stents offer undeniable therapeutic value: sealing perforations, excluding aneurysms, and preventing tissue ingrowth. Yet many physicians remain reluctant to use them in challenging anatomies because traditional designs introduce bulk, stiffness, and biasing forces that bare‑metal stents simply don’t.

This tension is often described as a Profile–Deliverability Paradox. At Medibrane, we see it differently.

We believe this is not a permanent limitation of endovascular therapy,but a materials science problem waiting to be solved.

Rethinking Deliverability at the Materials Level

Historically, covered stents have paid a steep price for their membranes. Conventional graft materials such as ePTFE or PET add wall thickness, increase crimped profile, and force larger delivery systems. The result is a device that behaves less like a flexible scaffold and more like a rigid tube,biasing the vessel instead of conforming to it.

Medibrane’s approach starts with a simple question:

What if a covered stent didn’t feel covered at all?

To answer it, we re‑engineered how polymer membranes are created, attached, and integrated with metallic frames.

Microlayer Polymer Deposition: Shrinking the Profile

The primary enemy of deliverability is bulk. Even small increases in wall thickness can translate into larger French sizes, reduced access options, and limited patient eligibility.

Medibrane’s Microlayer Polymer Deposition technology enables ultra‑thin, highly uniform membranes with wall thicknesses starting at ~15 microns—less than a quarter of the diameter of a human hair.

What this enables:

• Dramatically reduced crimped profiles

• Compatibility with low‑profile delivery systems

• Covered stent performance without bare‑metal tradeoffs

By minimizing material where it doesn’t add value, we give device designers back precious millimeters—without sacrificing sealing performance.

Sutureless Lamination: Preserving Native Flexibility

Traditional methods for attaching membranes to Nitinol frames rely on sutures or full encapsulation. Both approaches introduce problems:

• Sutures add drag, stress concentrations, and manufacturing complexity

• Double‑layer “sandwich” constructions significantly increase stiffness

Medibrane’s Sutureless Lamination eliminates both.

We bond the membrane directly to the stent—on either the inner or outer diameter—without stitching or double layers. This preserves the intrinsic flexibility and shape memory of the Nitinol frame.

The result:A covered stent that bends, tracks, and responds like the bare scaffold it’s built on.

Selective Bonding: Letting the Stent Move Naturally

A continuous polymer coating can unintentionally turn a flexible structure into a rigid one. When every strut is locked in place, the stent loses its ability to adapt to dynamic anatomy.

Medibrane solves this with Selective Bonding.

Rather than coating the entire frame, we bond the membrane only at strategically defined contact points. This allows individual struts to move independently, maintaining conformability while preserving full coverage.

Clinically, this means:

• Reduced vessel straightening

• Lower edge stress and trauma risk

• More natural vessel mechanics post‑deployment

Closing the Deliverability Gap

The goal of endovascular innovation should not be compromise. Physicians shouldn’t have to choose between deliverability and therapy, nor should engineers accept stiffness as the cost of coverage.

By combining ultra‑thin membranes, sutureless lamination, and selective bonding, Medibrane is closing the gap between what clinicians need and what current devices allow.

Covered stents don’t have to feel like crowbars.

They can track like catheters,and perform like state‑of‑the‑art grafts.

Is your device design hitting a flexibility or profile ceiling?Medibrane partners with innovators to enable thinner, more conformable, next‑generation endovascular solutions,without rewriting your entire platform.

Let’s redefine what “covered” can feel like.