Inventing High
Impact & High Value Medical Therapies: Methods & Case Studies in
Clinical Innovation
Zen Chu, active medical device
entrepreneur and investor and Co-founder, 3DM Inc, zen@acmedx.com
Inventing High Impact & High Value Medical Therapies: Methods &
Case Studies in Clinical Innovation
Zen
Many
physicians lament the difficulties of bringing innovative medical products to
market, but it is important to remember that innovations will only be
successful if they have a large impact on how medicine is practiced. New technologies must strive to create a new
standard of care, and their benefits compared to existing products must be
great enough to compensate for costs associated with product development,
clinical trials, and user education.
In the
medical industry, doctors are responsible for the majority of innovative
products. One study, for example, found
that twenty-two percent of leading surgeons are innovators. It is also worth observing that devices and
treatments conceived by physicians usually have a greater impact on the market
than do devices conceived by non-physicians.
Ninety-nine out of Medtronic’s top hundred products, for example, were
invented by physicians. The idea of a
lone physician inventor, however, is a myth.
For an idea to become a marketable product, a team of scientists and
businesspeople must be brought together to work on the project. Past results suggest that projects should be
planned in reverse, meaning that clear clinical goals should be identified and
that products should be built around these goals. As Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where
you’re going, you might end up somewhere else.”
Pitching
ideas to investors can be difficult for physicians who do not understand the
perspective of venture capital. Venture
capitalists think of products as either incremental advances or as
breakthroughs. In many cases,
incremental advances will only be profitable if they are incorporated into the
product line of an existing company.
When making decisions, venture capitalists consider two main factors:
the potential payoff and the time needed to obtain the payoff. Products that can be quickly brought to
market are more attractive to venture capitalists than products that will take
many years to become marketable. For
this speedy development to be accomplished, the entire developmental process
must be very disciplined.
Panel moderator: Richard
Anders, Managing Director, Rubin/Anders
Scientific, Inc., randers@digitalindustry.net
Panelists:
Zen Chu
Robert Creeden, Director, Partners Research Ventures,
rcreeden@partners.org
David Milne, General Partner, SV Life Sciences Advisers,
david.milne@svlsa.com
Thomas Stossel, MD, American Cancer Society Professor,
Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Co-Director, Division of
Hematology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, tstossel@rics.bwh.harvard.edu