RELJA Innovations
Wauwatosa
Innovation: The RELJA Clamp
Founder: Dr. Robby Amiot
Founded: 2020
reljainnovations.com
Podiatry, or the professional care of feet, can be traced back as far as the time of the ancient Egyptians, according to the Archaeological Institute of America. But despite having thousands of years to evolve the tools used in the profession, some of the products currently used by foot and ankle specialists just aren’t up to par.
Instead of sticking with the tools on the market today, Dr. Robby Amiot, a board-certified foot and ankle surgeon, launched Wauwatosa-based RELJA Innovations to design a line of medical equipment geared specifically for podiatrists.
“Our products are designed from the ground up by surgeons for surgeons, whereas with other companies, you have some engineer who doesn’t do surgeries designing products for surgeons to use,” said Amiot. “They don’t always gel.”
Since its founding in 2020, RELJA Innovations has launched four products, made at production sites in Indiana, Texas and Wisconsin. One of the company’s flagship products is the RELJA Clamp, which is designed to give surgeons predictable, reproducible results when performing bunion surgery.
Amiot has been a practicing surgeon for about 19 years with Aspen Orthopedic Specialists. During that time, he’s performed nearly 1,500 bunion procedures – about two to four a week.
A bunion, a bump that forms on the joint of the foot and moves it out of place, is created when some of the bones in the front portion of the foot begin shifting. Traditionally, a bunion procedure is performed through a large, open incision. A surgeon will fuse or cut a patient’s bones to realign them to a proper position, correcting the bunion deformity.
Before fusing or cutting a patient’s bones, a surgeon will typically hold any sort of correction in place with their hands. This dated method of performing bunion surgery hasn’t always yielded successful outcomes.
“I’ve been in this space for some time, so I see the upsides and downsides of the old methods and current methods,” said Amiot. “I thought it was time that we bring some new innovation to bunion surgery and try to get patients better outcomes.”
The RELJA Clamp, which can be applied in less than four minutes, is used without an incision. The clamp has two Steinmann pins that are inserted through a patient’s skin. Those pins are about 2 millimeters in size.
Once those pins are inserted, a surgeon rotates and shifts them until the patient’s bones are in the desired position. The clamp holds the correction in place, reducing the possibility of any human error that may occur by holding a correction by hand. The clamp is also clear, so it does not show up on a patient’s X-rays.
“The benefit of this clamp is getting a better correction than you can do with your hand or some other device,” said Amiot. “We also want it to be quickly applied.”
Amiot first came up with the idea of a clamp a year and a half ago. From there, he designed a first and second prototype and filed patents for the final RELJA Clamp product. The company completed validation testing to make sure the clamp worked as anticipated late last year.
The clamp was subject to numerous tests that made sure none of its materials were toxic and it would remain sterile when shipped across the country.
The RELJA Clamp officially hit the market five months ago and is currently being used by foot and ankle surgeons. RELJA Innovations also sells accompanying plates and screws to be used along with its clamp.
Dr. Mitchell Hulbert, a podiatrist with Ascension Wisconsin in Brown Deer and Mequon, is one of Amiot’s colleagues and one of the first users of the RELJA Clamp. He does one to two bunion surgeries a month. Since using the clamp, he’s seen more precise corrections to the foot deformities that cause bunions.
“With some of the other products on the market, you have some loss of the reduction of the deformity and less stable fixations,” he said. “When you use traditional clamps, you apply the fixation to the bones and the clamp doesn’t hold the bones in the completely correct position.”
The RELJA Clamp has not only helped improve his patients’ outcomes, but also decreased their discomfort and recovery times. He described the clamp’s use of only two pins as a “remarkable” feat that hasn’t been seen yet in the realm of podiatry.
“(Amiot) and I had discussed some of the products on the market along with some of their deficits,” said Hulbert. “He did a really great job actually designing the product to align with the goals we’d been unable to meet with some of those other products.”
“I’ve been making these kinds of innovations for a long time,” said Amiot. “I’ve done a bunch of them, and the RELJA Clamp is by far the best product I’ve used.”
In 2022, the company also launched its MIS Precision Chevron Bunion System, which allows surgeons to perform a chevron bunion osteotomy, another common procedure used to correct bunion deformities, with a minimally invasive technique.
Fast facts:
- Dr. Robby Amiot launched RELJA Innovations in 2020 after becoming frustrated with the antiquated methods used to perform bunion surgery.
- Amiot has performed more than 1,500 bunion surgeries to date.
- Amiot first had the idea for a modern, improved medical clamp a year and a half ago.
- The company’s RELJA Clamp officially launched last fall.
- Since the company’s inception, RELJA Innovations has created four products.
- Half of the company’s products launched in 2022 while the other half launched in 2023.
- The company has been issued one patent and has three pending.
