75 Years of the Same. Until Now.

In a recent article for The O&P EDGE, Harold H. Sears, PhD asked a question the entire upper-limb prosthetics industry should be sitting with: when 70% of active users favor a prototype over the devices they're currently wearing, why doesn't a body-powered product result?

Dr. Sears spent decades at the forefront of terminal device development, from the Utah Terminal Device project to his leadership at Motion Control. His research confirmed what many clinicians and users already know: body-powered devices remain essential for people with high functional and rugged needs. And yet, as he writes, the dominant products are essentially the same as they have been for 75 years.

He mapped the barriers clearly. Tooling costs exceeding $100,000. Manufacturers unwilling to cannibalize their own product lines. Payers who rarely fund both a functional device and a powered one. A market that has been underserved not because the engineering couldn't be done, but because the economics discouraged anyone from trying.

We read that list differently at Marins.

As a bootstrapped startup, we have no legacy product line to protect. We accepted the prototyping and patenting investment because the need was too important to wait for someone else. Our CTO and co-founder, Darryl DuBre, is himself an upper-limb device user who spent years wearing the very devices Dr. Sears describes. He didn't design the ProHensor® VCAL from a lab bench. He designed it from lived experience.

The result is the first modular voluntary-closing, auto-locking, body-powered terminal device. FDA registered. CE marked. Patent protected. Built for the people Dr. Sears has championed throughout his career.

Dr. Sears wrote that improvements in design could benefit the users who still choose body-power for its functionality, economy, simplicity, and durability. We agree.

Hold Fast.

Suzen DuBre, CEO | Marins, Inc.