Front Line Medical Technologies yesterday said it received Health Canada approval for its COBRA-OS arterial occlusion system.

The COBRA-OS (Control of Bleeding, Resuscitation, Arterial Occlusion System) is designed to be extremely low-profile for temporary hemorrhage control and resuscitation.

“Even with all the advances in medicine today, trauma patients are primarily still dying from blood loss – this is our chance to change that,” cofounder Adam Power said. “While REBOA continues to emerge as a life-saving procedure, we saw the need for a simple, fast, low-profile device to maximize its benefit and ultimately save more lives.”

Front Line Medical’s REBOA (Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta) is used in emergency situations when patients require hemodynamic support to maintain blood flow to the break and heart. COBRA-OS is a 4 Fr REBOA device.

COBRA-OS can be used in multiple situations, including non-compressible torso hemorrhage in trauma, postpartum hemorrhage and gastrointestinal hemorrhage.

“We have already seen great results, both from our pre-clinical and user validation studies,” cofounder and CEO Asha Parekh said. “When it comes to blood loss, timing is crucial and while most REBOA procedures take about 10 minutes, the COBRA-OS has taken just over a minute in our studies. Our ultimate goal is to lower the barriers to REBOA use around the world and after three years of hard work behind the scenes, Health Canada approval is our first step in making that happen.”