In Europe, Medtronic and Sofinnova Launch an Accelerator

Article preview reprinted from IN VIVO -  November/December, 2009  

One of Europe's leading venture capital firms, Paris-based Sofinnova Partners and device industry powerhouse Medtronic Inc. have announced plans to launch a new medical device incubator or accelerator in Europe-born out of what executives at both companies see as a fundamental disconnect between the clinical and technological richness of Europe and the practical reality of starting a company there. The new organization, designed to take advantage of what both companies believe is a wealth of untapped potential for new device ideas from European physicians, is located on the campus of the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne, one of the leading technical institutes in Europe. Read more...

In Europe, Medtronic and Sofinnova Launch an Accelerator

Article preview reprinted from IN VIVO -  November/December, 2009  

One of Europe's leading venture capital firms, Paris-based Sofinnova Partners and device industry powerhouse Medtronic Inc. have announced plans to launch a new medical device incubator or accelerator in Europe—born out of what executives at both companies see as a fundamental disconnect between the clinical and technological richness of Europe and the practical reality of starting a company there. The new organization, designed to take advantage of what both companies believe is a wealth of untapped potential for new device ideas from European physicians, is located on the campus of the École Polytechnique FÉdÉral de Lausanne (EPFL), one of the leading technical institutes in Europe.

"If you look at the top hundred products that we sell at Medtronic--coronary stents for angioplasty, artificial discs or cardiac resynchronization or deep brain stimulation--and ask simply, where did the idea come from, what you find is that almost 100% of the time they came from physicians and, in many cases, physicians located somewhere in Europe," says Stephen Oesterle, MD, Medtronic's SVP for medicine and technology, who points to Swiss innovators like Andreas Gruentzig, MD, the father of angioplasty and Ulrich Sigwart, MD, who developed the first coronary stent, as well as Alim-Louis Benabid, MD, PhD, of France, a pioneer in deep brain stimulation for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, to name just a few.

But while Europe has been the source of a rich supply of important clinical advances and inventive physicians, Oesterle says the continent has lacked "the infrastructure for entrepreneurship," the bedrock of talented engineers and eager investors who work closely with physicians to develop new technologies and start-ups, at least to the degree that they exist in the US. Antoine Papiernik, managing partner at Sofinnova, agrees. He argues that the notion that European physicians simply aren't interested in commercializing their ideas for new devices is no longer true. "It's not that they don't want to," he says. "It's that they don't know what to do." ( See "The Lonely World of European Medical Device Start-Ups," IN VIVO, March 2004.)

It was in an effort to help ideas for new devices advance in Europe that the accelerator was formed. From Medtronic's perspective, the idea was less to generate a financial return—though as partners in the accelerator, that will be one benefit for Medtronic—than to bring good ideas to the market, especially those coming from European physicians. "Over the years, as we've consolidated our businesses, we realized we were doing less and less fundamental R&D in Europe," says Steve Oesterle, who notes that most of the R&D in the device industry overall, not just Medtronic's, is done in the US. "What we wanted to do was to create a situation in Europe where we could have a rapid prototyping of ideas, sourced from our sales reps—and we have over 300 in the field—who hear about new ideas all the time and to create a situation where we brought together engineers and physicians."

Oesterle has long noted that "the vector of innovation in medical devices goes from bedside to bench," in contrast to the biopharma industry where the process is reversed. "What we want to do is to get the bench closer to the bedside," he says. At the same time, he goes on, Medtronic could have launched and funded an incubator on its own, but sought to work with Sofinnova because it didn't want to be limited in the ideas it brought forward. In Europe, "We often say 'no' to an idea that we hear about because it's not strategically of interest to Medtronic," he says. "But it may be strategically interesting to others in the device world, and we wanted to create a larger, more open environment for innovation."

- David Cassak

Purchase this article online  as a PDF and receive it immediately via email. Questions? Call (800) 332-2181. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.

Limited-time offer: Single-incision laparoscopy or natural orifice surgery: Which will win the day, or is there room for both? Are You Ready For The New Scarless Surgery Revolution? Download you FREE report now

Subscribe to IN VIVO.

Companies mentioned in this article:

Medtronic Inc.

IN VIVO delivers:

• Revealing, in-depth coverage of your competitors' strategies
• Incisive projections of future industry trends and their implications for your business
• Expert analysis of key industry developments
• Exclusive interviews with top industry executives and analysts
• In-depth examination of dealmaking, marketing, R&D, regulatory, and finance strategies -- those that were successful and those that missed the mark