Eastern Bank is the corporate sponsor for a year-long series of ‘Shark Tank’ medical device venture pitch events. The most recent one took place on Wednesday, October 30^th in the board room at M2D2’s innovation hub in front of a full audience. From a field of over 20 Massachusetts medical device start-up company applicants, 5 were chosen to make presentations to the panel.

Panelists were angel investors from Boston Harbor Angels and from Mass Medical Angels. Pitching their medical device inventions were Frederic Bourgeois from Nanopulse Biosciences, Bob Thompson from Vista Scientific, Donna Brezinski from Little Sparrow Technologies, Mark Mendel from Flow Forward Medical, and Jeff d’Agostino from 206 Ortho.

In addition to drilling the presenters on their anticipated funding needs, the investors also asked tough questions about the medical significance of their inventions, details about their business models, and status of their intellectual property.

The next event in the venture pitch series is expected to take place in January 2014.

The Massachusetts-South Africa Technology Fellowship Program (MSAT) is made possible by a generous grant from the United States Department of State. It is designed to bring emerging leaders from South Africa to Boston for five weeks of internship in the high tech, information technology and life sciences industries. The selected Fellows arrived earlier in October and are now placed in companies within the targeted industries to learn first-hand how issues in their fields are addressed in the United States. While deepening their understanding of American society, the visiting participants are also building a broad network made up of both their new American colleagues and the other visiting Fellows.

On Friday, October 11^th, M2D2 participated in the welcome dinner for their fellow, Thys Cronje, and others in this second cohort of the fellowship program.

Thys is the Managing Director of Diacoustic Medical Devices, located in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Diacoustic Medical Devices was founded in 2007 and the company focuses on the design, development and manufacture of decision support systems for medical and health applications in the e-health and m-health environment. Diacoustic Medical Devices is in the process of developing and commercializing a rapid, low cost screening device, called Sensi, that can be utilized by professional nurses, primary physicians and pediatricians irrespective of geographical location and/or economic situation, to screen large number of children in a hospital, clinic, child health clinic or mobile-clinic environment for pathological heart murmurs.

M2D2 opened their doors to welcome Thys and embraces the medical device technology he brings. He participated in an economic development roundtable discussion with University of Massachusetts President Robert Caret, University of Massachusetts Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan, as well as with other start-up companies from the M2D2 innovation hub, and Lowell business and community leaders.

Thys participated in M2D2’s program with Lowell High School. He schooled these high school juniors and seniors in the medical device industry and entrepreneurship in his native South Africa. He also accompanied the students on a tour of the nursing simulation lab at the University of Massachusetts Lowell School of Nursing where they saw first-hand the assistive treatment of infant respiratory issues. This session was followed by a welcome lunch at M2D2.

M2D2 arranged for Thys Cronje to meet with medical field experts at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center to learn about usability studies and other opportunities for collaboration. Under the direction of the executive director, he toured the simulation center and anatomy labs.

The second worksite placement week of this fellowship program coincides with Connected Health Week in Boston. Thys Cronje and M2D2 will be participating in several of the events.

Lowell High School and the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center are pleased to announce that today they kicked off a unique partnership where juniors and seniors from the school will take part in an experience here at the M2D2 innovation hub located in Wannalancit Mill. This experience is in the form of an honors level elective course titled, ‘M2D2 Partnership Experience.’

Under guidance from M2D2 co-directors Stephen McCarthy, Ph.D and Steven Tello, and with hands-on assistance from two UTeach interns, the high school students will learn about and actively participate in entrepreneurship, business and medical device development. An event will be held at the end of the school year to showcase the students’ experience and inventions.

Corporate sponsors of the M2D2 Partnership Experience for this inaugural year are Eastern Bank and Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union. Eastern Bank is supportive under its workforce development initiative and Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union brings its hands-on expertise in financial literacy to these Lowell High School students.

Professor McCarthy welcomed the students to the program. He shared that he is a graduate of Lowell High School and ‘wished there was a program like this when I was there.’ Professor Tello also welcomed the students and added, ‘I am looking forward to working with you from an entrepreneurial perspective and digging into ideation.’ Lowell High School senior and program participant, Daniel Ernst, addressed the audience, ‘I want to speak for the group of us and thank everyone involved for this opportunity. We are very excited.’

UTeach interns are involved in this partnership experience under the direction of Sumudu Lewis, Ph.D, UMass Lowell UTeach Director and Master Teacher. Interns involved in this partnership experience, John Romano and Kreg Kaminski, shared about their backgrounds as UMass Lowell students and also shared how much they are looking forward to mentoring the students and what they will accomplish with them.

On Monday, September 23rd, M2D2 was pleased to host the first Mexican Medical Device Industry Mission to Massachusetts. Joining us were the Mexican Consulate General from Boston, Daniel Hernandez Joseph, as well as thirty-five guests representing ten Mexican companies, government and educational institutions. This contingent was welcomed to campus by Chancellor Meehan, Vice Chancellor Moloney, and M2D2 co-directors Dr. Stephen McCarthy, Dr. Steven Tello, and Dr. Nate Hafer.

“Visit highlights innovative companies housed at the M2D2 Medical Device Innovation Hub!”

LOWELL – August 12, 2013 – Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray and Lowell Senator Eileen Donoghue heard from entrepreneurs about the new medical device products they are developing when they toured M2D2’s medical device innovation hub at UMass Lowell last week.

Charles Leahy presented information on his company, Vista Scientific, as did Jeff D’Agostino of 206 Ortho. Mike Fahey and Ravi Kupparaj of InfoBionic also spoke with Senate President Murray and Senator Donoghue about their emerging medical technology.

UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan, other UMass Lowell officials and faculty, and representatives of the UMass Medical School accompanied the senators.

M2D2 is helping new medical device entrepreneurs convince venture capitalists that they too have marketable ideas and products. In fact, M2D2 can help develop products every step of the way, from proof-of-concept to commercialization.

The innovation hub, which is nearly full with 14 clients, offers start-up companies access to M2D2’s services and co-location with other emerging companies who share a path to commercialization in the medical device market. M2D2 has assisted about 100 such companies and entrepreneurs sincethe program kicked off in the spring of 2007. Forty of them have received substantial support. To date M2D2 has helped its companies secure $22 million in private funds and nearly $5 million in grant funds.

LOWELL ‘ June 24, 2013 ‘ M2D2, in collaboration with the Multidisciplinary Assessment of Technology Centre for Healthcare (MATCH), a UK-based organization, taught more than a dozen U.S. entrepreneurs over two days last week, focusing on international business decisions for medical device entrepreneurs.

On the first day, teaching took place at the M2D2 Innovation Hub located on the UMass Lowell campus at its medical device incubator facility. Day two took place at the UMass Club in downtown Boston.

The course covered topics relevant for medical device start-up companies. Topics included:

• ‘ The Headroom Method for economically evaluating medical device and related products;
• ‘ Analysis of optimistic headroom;
• ‘ Realistic headroom and maximum reimbursable price;
• ‘ The role of the maximum reimbursable price when making price decisions;
• ‘ The concept of maximum reimbursable price in relation to investment decisions;
• ‘ An introduction to analyzing clinical trial evidence.

University of Ulster Professor Brian Meenan of the University of Ulster provided a welcome message. He heads the Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering Research Group (BTERG) within the Nanotechnology & Integrated Bioengineering Centre (NIBEC) at Ulster.

Professor Terry Young educated the group about the MATCH project, as he is credited with winning the research council grant which established this organization in cooperation with the University of Birmingham and the University of Nottingham. Professor Young also has publications to his name which address healthcare delivery in terms of service, systems and technology, including commercial and investment decisions, uptake and adoption.

Professor Richard Lilford taught on the evaluation of medical technologies, both in terms of devices and pharmaceuticals. Professor Lilford is an expert in a wide range of areas of health related research, from developing clinical trials and research ethics to assessing the cost effectiveness of treatments for health service.

Dr. Amanda Chapman shared her studies in the field of early economic evaluation of medical devices. She undertook this study as part of the MATCH research collaboration. Amanda also works on a number of health technology assessment projects commissioned by the National Institute for Health and Care (NICE).

And Mr. Alan Girling taught on the subject of statistical methodology as it relates to health research. He is an expert in the field, having worked as a researcher in statistics and as a professor of mathematics for many years.

Professor Brian Meenan providing welcome and introductions

Professor
Terry Young educating the group about the MATCH project

The MATCH organization is a well-established research collaboration between four leading UK universities (Birmingham, Brunel, Nottingham & Ulster) and a cohort of industrial partners, also supported by stakeholders from the NHS and other public sector organizations. MATCH, funded since 2003 by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and partner subscriptions, provides a critical research mass in the field of health technology assessment (HTA) in its widest sense, bringing together expertise in health economics, engineering and social sciences.

M2D2 helps entrepreneurs develop products every step of the way, from proof-of-concept to commercialization. In addition to these services, the Commonwealth, under Governor Patrick’s tenure, provided $4 million for the M2D2 innovation hub we are in today.

M2D2 has assisted more than 100 start-up companies and entrepreneurs sincethe program kicked off in the spring of 2007. M2D2 has helped its companies secure over $20 million in funding. The incubator at the headquarters is nearly full with 14 client companies.

Eastern Bank sponsored a panel-style venture pitch event today that drew more than 40 people and resembled ABC’s Shark Tank show!

In addition to investors from Boston Harbor Angels, several of the entrepreneurs representing the start-up companies housed at M2D2 also pitched their ventures to Louie Soares and Wendy Alvarez of Eastern Bank and to Jinge Wu of RWP Capital. Nancy Briefs presented information on her company, Infobionic, as did Mark Mendel of Flow Forward Medical LLC. Andy Carter of TheraCell and Bob Thompson of Vista Scientific also presented information on their companies.

All had to answer tough questions from the panel of investors regarding their technologies, current stage of development and financial projections.