The History of ProSpon
The company ProSpon, s. r. o. (the Czech equivalent of a limited-liability company or LLC) was founded in 1992 in the city of Kladno by Ing. Zdeněk Čejka and Ivan Hrubý, who had left Poldi Kladno steelworks before its privatization. The "Surgery" department of Poldi steelworks, which specialized in producing medical devices, where they both worked until then, was subsequently privatized by its long-time manager, Mr. Stanislav Beznoska and transformed into a successful competitive company Beznoska, which still operates in Kladno today.
In its early days, ProSpon specialized in external fixators for treating complicated fractures, and already in 1993 it also launched the 1st Czech shoulder joint replacement and in 2000 the first oncological replacement of the knee joint.
In 2013, ProSpon purchased MEDIN Orthopaedics, a. s. (a. s. is an abbreviation for the Czech equivalent of a joint stock company) from MEDIN, a. s. (formerly the "Chirana" factory) located in Nové Město na Moravě. MEDIN Orthopaedics was, after the long-term leadership of Ing. František Denk, a continuation of a program focused on producing medical devices at the aircraft engine factory "Walter" in the Jinonice district of the capital city of Prague. MEDIN bought this subsidiary from Walter, a. s. in 2006 in order to expand its portfolio of orthopaedic products, because since its formation in the 1980s, the Jinonice workplace had focused on developing and manufacturing replacements for, not only, large human joints. Advanced technologies in the aviation industry were used during production and the necessary connections to leading Czech academic workplaces were also gradually built here. Between 2013 and 2014, there was a merger of companies, and the development and production of the defunct joint-stock company MEDIN Orthopaedics were definitively moved from the Prague site of Siemens in district of Zličín, where the company had moved to from Jinonice in 2011, to ProSpon in Kladno. With both Beznoska and ProSpon, the city of Kladno, where the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering of the Czech Technical University, founded in 2005 is also located, has thus become a center of domestically applied development and production of Czech joint replacements.
In 2014, while following the latest trends in the field, ProSpon included a 3D printer capable of printing from titanium and titanium alloys among its technologies. Together with the use of 3D modeling software and skilled specialists, who combined the experience and know-how of both companies ProSpon and formerly Walter, this enabled the development and efficient production of advanced, and not only, individual replacements and tools, comparable to the production of the world's leading companies. Currently, these replacements from the Czech company, located in the city of Kladno, help patients not only in the Czech Republic, but also globally.
