Thomas Passero could be said to have a global reach and a Midas touch. And with revolutionary advances occurring in micro-technology and computer sensing, it could also be said his success is just the beginning for advances in artificial limbs, hands and now, fingers.
As co-inventor of Living Skin and a board member of Touch Bionics as well as founder and president of Prosthetic and Orthotic Associates of Middletown, Passero”™s passion for his field and his business acumen does more than prove profitable, it is customizing the newest technology to fit individual bodies and meet a person”™s unique needs. And the range of possibilities is growing.
Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), involving microprocessors interacting with lightweight materials, uses the body”™s own electricity to stimulate reactions, have already revolutionized possibilities for people who have lost limbs, or lost some function, in their lower body.
“The cost and complexity have changed dramatically,” Passero said. “The prosthetic I wore 20 years ago cost $700 and I was able to walk 10 blocks. My prosthetic now costs $18,000 and people using it can run races. It”™s a whole new product.”
Passero is also a customer
Passero is a Vietnam veteran who served in the war safely, only to be hit by a drunk driver shortly after returning home, costing him a leg. “That was my entry point,” he said, “I”™ve been a practitioner for 25 years and a consumer of prosthetics for 35 years.”
Passero founded P&O Associates in Middletown 21 years ago. It now has 15 fulltime employees and annual sales of between $5 million and $10 million. “We are doing well, we are growing,” he said. Last spring the company moved into a new headquarters off Crystal Run Drive and realized new efficiencies in operation that have led to faster production time creating limbs.
“Everything is custom made,” Passero said. “These are some of the most costly and complex prosthetic devices in the world.”
Creating a global presence
Besides the Middletown headquarters, the company has offices in Orange, Ulster, Dutchess and Sullivan counties, and has recently been drawing customers from around the world.
“What got us on the global map was Living Skin,” Passero said, of a three-layer high definition silicone substance that is far more lifelike and aesthetically appealing than previous covers for artificial limbs.
Just a few years ago, cover for artificial limbs were made of vinyl. “They were unaesthetic and unattractive,” he said. “So all this work would go in to make a device function well and in the end, especially if it was a child, they would be disappointed and their parents would be disappointed.”
So Passero co-invented Living Skin, for use in his own work fitting prosthetic and orthotic devices, and one day in 2007, was contacted by officials from a United Kingdom-based company called Touch Bionics, which had found his company through the Internet.
Investors and inventors there had combined to create i-Limb, an electro-mechanical hand that uses the tiny pulses of electricity humans emit to move muscles to give commands to an artificial hand, with individually moveable fingers. They wanted to include Living Skin in their finished product.
New contacts come from network
The partnership has proven successful for both companies and in 2008 Passero sold Living Skin to Touch Bionics and joined the company as a board member and Director of Clinical Communications. While continuing with Prosthetic and Orthotic Associates, the new contacts have opened up a global network of clinicians and patients, some of whom travel to Middletown to be fitted for their custom-designed and fitted device.
Passero has spent the last three years learning more about i-Limb technology and traveling to teach clinicians how to take advantage of the new opportunities it offers. And what he and colleagues realized, he said, is that there is also a need for artificial fingers that could operate using the same basic technology. Thus ProDigits, a partial hand that is customized to meet the needs of a patient suffering the loss or lack of a finger or fingers, was started last December.
Passero said he feels fortunate, “We in Middletown have the pleasure of being part of this team of international specialists,” he said. “As a result we have already done more of these ProDigit systems than any other company in the nation and are doing more and more as people become aware of this technology.”
