Is Massachusetts a Medtech hub that benefits from industry that has developed there close to all the universities? Is the infrastructure for both the creation of device ideas and the development of device ideas unique to the state of Massachusetts? Why can medical device companies gain a foothold in Massachusetts that they cannot gain elsewhere?
…Across the state, medical device entrepreneurs are working on novel ways to improve surgeries, stop bleeding and detect disease. In an innovation economy that faces competitive pressures, the Massachusetts medical device industry has managed to secure escalating amounts of venture capital and win regulatory approvals at a rate that eclipses most other states with high-tech industries.
The state’s advantage comes from innovative small companies that spawn new concepts and a robust hospital system that helps refine them, said Marc E. Goldberg, managing director of BioVentures Investors, a venture capital firm that has invested in start-up medical device companies…
Those ideas led to 1,378 regulatory approvals between 2002 and 2006 for medical devices or instruments that were substantially similar to existing products, according to a new study by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s John Adams Innovation Institute. The group’s annual “Innovation Index,” relying on Food and Drug Administration figures, showed that only California, with 3,495 approvals, bested Massachusetts among states with significant high-tech economies.
Over the same time period, Massachusetts companies received 15 premarket approvals for devices or instruments, behind California, with 51, and Minnesota, with 19. Devices that go through the premarket approval process are more novel, sophisticated products, and Massachusetts companies obtained more premarket approvals than competing states such as New York, New Jersey and North Carolina.
Venture capitalists helped fund the work with expanding amounts of cash. In 2007, venture capitalists closed 35 medical-device investment deals worth $395.3 million in the Boston area, a region that includes most of Massachusetts from Boston to Worcester, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Much of that investing took place in the MetroWest area stretching from Cambridge to Worcester, with 26 deals worth $280.4 million.
Venture capital investments in Massachusetts medical device companies have also escalated in the last three years. In the MetroWest area, Dow Jones VentureSource calculated, 2007 investments were up 47 percent from $191.4 million in 2006.
The state’s ability to perform highly valuable manufacturing services, such as the plastics injection molding done by Nypro Inc. of Clinton, has allowed it to compete against larger, more established device clusters in California and Minnesota, said Michael J. Tavilla, program manager for research and innovation at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s John Adams Innovation Institute in Westboro and lead author of the recent 2007 “Innovation Index of the Massachusetts Economy.”
…Doing that has made medical devices a stable industry, although it has endured layoffs recently, notably from large employer Boston Scientific Corp. of Natick. Medical device makers employed 20,555 people in Massachusetts in 2004, according to a study last year by the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute. The industry had a $5.5 billion impact on the economy and accounted for about 10 percent of all Massachusetts exports in 2006.
North Carolina company Entegrion, which is developing devices to reduce bleeding from traumatic wounds such as battlefield injuries, has set up a Worcester laboratory, signed up Massachusetts collaborators and contracted with an Avon manufacturer to make the company’s lead product, a gauze-like dressing for wounds called Stasilon.
Keith Rosiello, a consultant to Entegrion, set up a laboratory in one of the Worcester business incubators owned by Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives to push ahead with work on Entegrion’s Stasix, an agent to reduce bleeding. Massachusetts has a niche that Entegrion is using to its advantage, he said…
Not all start-up companies have been able to tap into venture capital to fund their businesses. Mr. Prescott of Crescent Innovations has secured federal Small Business Innovation Research funding, grants and money from individual “angel” investors to finance research. He has hired researchers on a contract basis as needed and used young interns to help. The company is based within ECI Biotech of Worcester.
Crescent Innovations’ strategy is to develop its technology sufficiently to attract investment and support from biotech or pharmaceutical corporate partners, Mr. Prescott said. It is also aiming to secure another SBIR grant before the end of 2008…
Bigger companies seeking to fill their pipelines with new projects are one of the factors that keep the state’s medical device industry moving, said Mr. Goldberg of BioVentures Investors, which has invested in companies such as HydroCision Inc. of Billerica, which is developing water-jet tools for surgeons, and Cardiosolutions Inc. of Stoughton, which has created a minimally invasive procedure to repair leaky heart valves…
SIV Technologies Inc. of Worcester, a tiny start-up funded by friends and relatives, is trying to find the right potential investors for its technology, a way of using nuclear resonance technology to detect the nuclei of atoms and figure out the contents of a sample. President David Lieblich said he needs funding to develop a prototype, which was first aimed at military markets but that he now sees as a potential tool for the pharmaceutical industry…
The challenge for the state’s medical device industry is to sustain and fund the transfer of inventions from research organizations and academic researchers to commercial entities, said Mr. Tavilla of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative…
Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s proposed $1 billion life sciences initiative might help with that, according to Thomas J. Sommer, president of the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council, a trade group. The bill’s language is vague about the kinds of companies that might qualify for loans or tax incentives, but money for the state’s Life Sciences Center might be available for medical device companies, Mr. Sommer said…
Post a Comment