Innovators, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists working to market leading-edge medical devices or molecular medicines have an opportunity to learn how to navigate the constantly changing regulatory, insurance and patient care systems environments.
That opportunity comes next week at the
West Michigan Science & Technology Initiative's
SUMmIT, one of the region's first to bring together the drug, diagnostic and device industries to discuss emerging trends.
EDF Ventures' Managing Director Mike DeVries will offer his expertise in medical devices at the event. He says that in bringing new medical devices to market, that the majority of the trends are dictated by the demographics of just two client groups: an aging population and an obese population.
"Innovators continue to move towards doing surgical intervention in a less invasive manner," he says. "And the aging population expects more out of the technology because people don't have a sedentary lifestyle anymore."
DeVries says aging and obesity are opening a lot of doors for new medical devices ranging from wheelchair innovations to medical implants. But manufacturers wishing to diversify or startups hoping to capitalize on the next big thing must get in line ahead of the competition.
"There are fundamental differences between how manufacturers operated in the past and how to think about medical devices," DeVries says. "Lot sizes (for medical devices) are in hundreds rather than hundreds of thousands like in the auto industry, and regulations are stiff and complicated.
"The other issue is where do you start, who do you talk to just to get into the supply chain," he says.
Joining DeVries will be Daniel H. Farkas, Ph.D., laboratory director of the
Sequenom Center for Molecular Medicine and Shawn Shirazi, senior director of formulation research and development for
Perrigo; all three will speak and lead panel discussions at the September 17 event.
Source: Mike DeVries, EDF Ventures; Rebecca Howe,
Lambert, Edwards & Associates
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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