The region’s unique incubator program will be better able to do its job -- fostering the ideas of inventors of medical devices that have the best potential for creating jobs in Michigan -- with recent support it’s received from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
After an 18-month dialog between the foundation and
Southwest Michigan First, the Kellogg Foundation has awarded the Michigan Medical Device Accelerator $400,000, a decision that Kevin McLeod calls "exciting."
McLeod leads the
Michigan Medical Device Accelerator and he says the funding "helps us evolve as an organization" as it encourages businesses that create good paying jobs that support families and fights poverty in that fashion.
"At our heart, our goal, what this is about, is jobs and growing jobs locally. And in this case by locally we mean in Michigan," McLeod says.
The accelerator is unlike other incubator programs in that it has no physical location, no space for fledgling businesses to set up shop. Instead, the accelerator takes the best ideas it receives and gives them an opportunity to grow by matching them with companies that have the engineering and manufacturing expertise to create the envisioned devices.
New businesses grow within existing companies rather than in their own space as their devices move toward the trials that will demonstrate people can safely use them.
The accelerator focuses on those devices it believes have the most potential in the marketplace and assists the entrepreneur or inventor move through the design and funding stages it needs to be a commercial success.
Board members with medical device expertise from Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, lawyers, physicians and venture capitalists are among those who serve on the board and bring their experience to bear in decisions on which project go forward. The accelerator receives 200 ideas for medical devices each year and maintains a portfolio of more than 40 companies with products in various stages of development.
Innovators inside and outside existing companies are equally likely to become part of the process to bring new medical devices to market. For example, the accelerator recently has been working with an entrepreneur from Palo Alto who does not have his own company but who hopes to see his device made here and at the same time it works closely with Tekna, a local company that has launched more than 300 products in the past 30 years and which added 14 employees in 2011.
The work the accelerator does builds on Michigan’s strengths and especially the region’s network of bioscience and medical resources. Michigan ranks third in the number of jobs generated through the medical device industry, according to the 2010 Lewin Group Study the "State Economic Impact of the Medical Technology Industry." The study found those employed in the medical device industry made on average 22 percent more than in any other industry in Michigan.
Businesses that make medical devices are likely to cluster near others making such products in Michigan to benefit from existing resources plus its affordable industrial space, competitive labor pool and industry know-how, creating an opportunity for the Michigan.
The Kellogg funding will allow Michigan to build on what it does and does well, McLeod says.
Writer: Kathy Jennings, Second Wave Media
Source: Kevin McLeod, Michigan Medical Device Accelerator of Southwest Michigan First
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