The NuMED legacy is one of humble beginnings, community, and teamwork.
Beginning with the desire to get back to his roots, create jobs in his hometown, and a belief that he could use his ingenuity in catheter design and development to help patients; Al Tower Sr. purchased an old elementary schoolhouse in the small town of Hopkinton, NY and founded NuMED in 1984. After establishing the manufacturing and extrusion facility, which leveraged his expertise working with and extruding a full range of catheter materials, he hired a few talented individuals from the local community and set out to speak with doctors to better understand what interventional tools they needed to more effectively treat their patients.
The Early Days
Working alongside Doug Villnave, the inventive head of R&D, and Al Tower Jr., the up and coming head of production, the close-knit group collaborated with the brightest minds in interventional pediatric cardiology to create the first of many groundbreaking interventional devices. A singular focus on helping children with heart defects led to their first breakthrough, the low-profile TYSHAK® PTV balloon catheter, developed in collaboration with Professor Michael Tynan and Professor Shak Qureshi.
Growth and Expansion
The development and introduction of new products led to the expansion of manufacturing. NuMED Canada Inc., was opened in Cornwall, Ontario in 1990 to meet the needs of the growing global demand for its angioplasty devices and provide additional manufacturing capacity. In September 2000, NuMED Canada Inc. moved their operations to a new facility consisting of a modern manufacturing department that caters to the needs of the medical community in over 100 countries with export representing approximately 95% of production.
NuMED, Inc. also went through a significant expansion of the Hopkinton, NY location in 1999 to meet the increased demand for its products. This location produced new innovations such as the first septostomy balloon catheter (Z-5™) with an end hole to accommodate a guidewire, a balloon catheter with a true ‘waist’ (NuCLEUS-X™) approved for PTV of the aortic and mitral valves, and the first Balloon-in-Balloon (BIB®) catheter approved for stent placement. As a result of this increased capacity and stellar reputation producing high quality catheters and stents, other leading device manufacturers contract with NuMED to design and supply their devices as an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) contract manufacturer. This led to five additional building expansions and created numerous new jobs in the community.
New Leadership and Expanded Partnerships
Led by Al Tower Jr., who became the sole owner of all NuMED companies in 2013, the company consistently invested in discovering new ways for helping interventionalists treat patients through less invasive approaches. This has resulted in NuMED receiving approval for the Covered CP Stent™ for Coarctation of the Aorta and RVOT in the US, and new innovations including the NuDEL All-In-One Covered CP Stent System.
The company’s success was not only due to product innovation, but also thanks to the strong partnership with their distributors, providing access to NuMED products worldwide. The dedicated distributors, hardworking employees, and physician partners form ‘The NuMED Family.’
Focus and Commitment
Today, the NuMED family continues to innovate and follow a patient-first approach to developing products to help patients with congenital heart defects, unchanged since the company was founded in 1984. Every employee is a valued and integral part of the organization, unified in their shared belief of the importance of helping children around the world and committed to the local community.
With an eye toward the future, in 2020 Al Tower Jr. opened a NuMED office in Orlando, Florida where he now works with his daughter, Haylee.
