The company was founded in 2012 by Mitch Eggers, an engineer and inventor, who learned of the pitfalls of conventional metallic devices such as intravascular stents and filters while attending medical school at Baylor College of Medicine. He built a cardiovascular simulator in his garage that mimicked human physiology to test a plethora of absorbable polymers for potential device application. A class of polymers was identified that retained strength for months under the rigor of the cardiovascular system before breaking down into mere carbon dioxide and water. Mitch then designed several intravascular filters and stents from braiding the polymers and successfully tested them in the simulator that led to the top award in surgery and bioengineering research at the annual American Medical Association conference.