Meet Andre, Armen and Richard of Avenir Medical Inc.

For most university students, hip replacements are the last thing on their minds. Not so for Andre Hladio, Richard Fanson and Armen Bakirtzian, owners of Avenir Medical Inc. and creators of PelvAssist™.

While in their fourth year of the Mechatronics program at the University of Waterloo, these friends were tasked with an engineering design project. After speaking with Armen’s father, an orthopaedic surgeon, they realized the technological challenges these surgeons faced in the operating room each day and set out to develop a solution.

After many long nights and exhausting weekends, Andre, Armen and Richard created the initial model for PelvAssist™, a surgical navigation tool to be used for hip replacement surgeries – soon after branding their new company, Avenir Medical Inc.

The young entrepreneurs further developed their product as they each pursued Masters degrees.  Upon graduation, with finished product in hand, the two set off to provide demonstrations to orthopaedic surgeons across the region – piquing the interest of surgeons across the province.

“After winning the Ontario’s Next Top Entrepreneur competition in 2010, we gained the support and momentum needed to launch Avenir Medical with confidence,” explains Andre Hladio, co-founder of Avenir Medical Inc. “Soon we will bring cost-effective and easy-to-use technologies into the operating room, to help orthopaedic surgeons perform hip replacement surgery more accurately.”