Mahi prosthetic foot: plastic injection moulding

Who is EXONEO ?

Biomechanics & industrial design.

Everything started in 2016, over coffee with friends and the impromptu visit of Joëlle, a tibial amputee, who openly complains about her “painful” stump compressed in her prosthesis.

From this exchange, EXONEO was born in February 2017 with the desire to answer the question:

What if biomechanical engineering, inspired by the way the human body works, could design innovative prosthetics and orthotics?

moulage injection plastique

EXONEO collabore avec Initial outillage injection plastique pied prothétique

Innovative MedTech startup

Backed by Aviva’s INCO social fund, Exoneo first worked on a prototype biomechanical prosthetic foot and in July 2017, the prototype version of UPYA was tested by Joëlle, who then declared in front of the whole team, “I’ve got my foot back!”

Encouraged by Joëlle’s words, Exoneo was convinced of the merits of its innovation and devoted its energy to a mission: to revolutionize the biomechanical response to disability by designing prosthetic and orthotic products that are innovative, comfortable and accessible to all.

Specialized in biomechanical engineering

Exoneo is at the forefront of innovative solutions designed to revolutionize and improve human mobility.

Convinced that biomechanics can significantly improve the quality of life of people with motor disabilities, all Exoneo employees are committed to offering solutions that take into account the different aspects of their lives: mobility, comfort, practicality, durability and affordability.

All Exoneo products are anatomically inspired, developed for you and accessible to all.

The Mahi project

Thanks to biomechanics, EXONEO’s teams are able to break down the body parts studied into different parts that work in concert, promoting comfort of use and creating natural movement.

Encouraged by Joëlle’s words, Exoneo was convinced of the merits of its innovation, and devoted its energies to a mission: to revolutionize the biomechanical response to disability by designing prosthetic and orthotic products that are innovative, comfortable and accessible to as many people as possible.

This approach enabled us to launch our first product: Upya (which means “new start” in Swahili). Upya offers natural walking sensations and comfort. However, with Upya, the level of mobility, eligible patient weights and available sizes were limited (not very active patients, weights between 55 and 110 kgs and sizes between 25cm and 29cm).

A prosthetic foot

Exoneo has reinvented itself to take the biomechanical approach even further, by developing a prosthetic foot that offers even more pleasurable sensations, with much greater dynamism and an unprecedented level of mobility.

We called it Mahi (which means « performance » in Maori language). Upya was our first born, Mahi is our prodigy. Mahi is what we do best today.

The aim of the Mahi foot was to offer the most dynamic patients unprecedented walking comfort coupled with a dynamism that matches their activity. The aim is that they should no longer have to adapt to a prosthetic foot, but that the prosthetic foot should adapt to their lifestyle. So the idea here was to broaden the patient target: from 40 to 110kgs (soon 130kgs) and sizes from 21 cm to 29 cm.

The challenge

Product development

Keep the biomechanical approach and improve on all the strengths of its predecessor.

Meeting this challenge requires a different approach to product development. Because our approach to prosthetic product development is unique, we have to choose prototyping and production solutions that are in line with our philosophy. A biomechanical prosthetic foot based on the human foot means a prosthetic foot containing several parts assembled and manufactured on a large scale.

collaboration

Initial & EXONEO

In this sense, a solid partnership with our suppliers is imperative. We were looking for a partner who could support us in the production of some of the parts needed to complete this major project, while remaining flexible enough, and we found it in Initial.

Working with Initial not only allows us to reduce our environmental impact by choosing a close partner, but also to benefit from French know-how. Moreover, Initial offers a wide range of solutions, from mold design to part injection. From 3D printing for mock-ups and prototypes to polymer injection for mass-produced parts, we can work hand in hand to offer patients the best possible product.