Nearly 80 people attended the Pediatric Device Breakthrough Collaborative event to discover better medical technologies and solutions to help children. together to better understand academic-industry relationship barriers and catalysts for innovation during the fifth annual Pediatric Device Breakthrough Collaborative event.
Nearly 80 representatives from Abbott, 3M, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Starkey Hearing Technologies, Venn Foundation, Koronis Biomedical Technology, Minneapolis VA Health Care System, Children’s Minnesota, Mayo Clinic, Michigan-based C.S. Mott's Children's Hospital, Indiana University, Michigan University and the University of Minnesota among others gathered to discuss “Cracking the Partnership Code: Building Successful Industry-Academic Partnerships to Advance Pediatric Innovation” at the McNamara Alumni Center in Minneapolis.
Industry expertise
Attendees heard from keynote speakers Tim Moran, founder and CEO of PediaVascular, and Gerald Timm, PhD, professor of Urology at the University of Minnesota’s Medical School. Moran highlighted how partnering leverages the unique strengths of academia and industry to accelerate technology development, logistics of different collaboration models, and the impact of partnerships in the pediatric space. Timm shared several case studies about how these collaborations were critical to bringing several urology technologies to market.
Additionally, a panel of academic and industry experts covered various perspectives from academic-industry partnerships, including financial models, challenges, success stories, and lessons learned. The panelists included:
- Leza Besemann, Senior Marketing Manager, University of Minnesota Technology Commercialization
- Matthew Cooper, Division Medical Officer, 3M Critical & Chronic Care Solutions
- Patrick Lichter, President/CTO, Koronis Biomedical Technologies
- Jonathan Merrell, Director, Clinical Care Innovation Accelerator, Indiana CTSI and Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Indiana University
“We are happy to bring together a variety of innovators to improve healthcare for children,” said Gwenyth Fischer, MD, assistant professor, clinical advisor for the Medical Devices Center, and director of the Pediatric Device Innovation Consortium (PDIC). “Small market technologies, like pediatric medical devices, require collaborative approaches and innovative models to close the innovation gap.”
The event was hosted by the PDIC and held in conjunction with the University of Minnesota’s Design of Medical Devices Conference, and sponsored by CTSI’s Office of Discovery and Translation (ODAT) and the University of Minnesota’ Technology Commercialization.
The Pediatric Device Breakthrough collaborative event is one of the many ways CTSI and PDIC are working together to support University researchers discover better medical technologies and solutions to help children. The April 18 event coordinated connections that may funnel into the Pediatric Device Breakthrough Collaborative Funding Program, which provides seed funds and operational support for collaborations between University of Minnesota faculty members and outside entities so they can move pediatric medical device technologies forward.