History
Located just north of Seattle Washington in Victoria, B.C., ViVitro Labs Inc. has been engineering testing solutions for 25 years for clients in every corner of the world.
Founded by partners David Walker, Ph.D. and Larry Scotten, Dipl. T., ViVitro Systems built the original ViVitro test equipment to evaluate a heart valve developed at Victoria’s Royal Jubilee Hospital’s Cardiac Development Lab in the mid-1970s. At the time, there had been little documented success developing pulsatile flow testing equipment, so the two approached the project as an engineering challenge.
The first prototype of their laboratory pump and model heart was constructed using a VW piston, and their early successes were instrumental in proving a positive displacement pump was capable of creating a physiological flow. Through laborious calculations and a strong sense of ingenuity, David and Larry were able to mimic valve positioning and physiological compliances to realize a simulation of the working heart in a model that was accurate and repeatable.
David and Larry’s determination resulted in the first commercial Pulse Duplicator in 1984. Years later, Dr. Walker and Larry Scotten complimented their focus on heart valve testing by developing the HiCycle for accelerated durability testing, and this system became recognized as the world’s most efficient and cost effective means of assessing heart valve durability. After many years of developing a reputation for ingenuity and quality, David and Larry passed the torch of ViVitro to StarFish Medical, a medical device engineering firm, well known for innovation in the life sciences and medical communities.
ViVitro Labs offers its clients the benefit by being part of Starfish Medical, a multi-national business group, where in-house manufacturing capability and engineering services for product development are readily available by a team of multi-disciplinary medical device engineers. From its home in a world class laboratory testing facility that offers testing services, such as advanced flow visualization, that were otherwise found only in academia, the ViVitro Labs team, with its industry knowledge and academic excellence, provides established laboratory services for any need or helping you update or create a world class laboratory with continuous product improvement and new powerful tools to better you results in the lab.
ViVitro continues to expand as a company so we can continue to lead the industry in cardiovascular device testing.
