Enterpreneurship medical device in academic vs private practice

[Medstd*+]

As a medical student, I think that (and i may be wrong) most surgical innovations and medical devices come out of physicians from universities and I find they are co founders to many devices.

But Dr John Alder, Stanford neurosurgeon who invented gamma knife surgery said in the surgeon agent interview that he would actually have been in private practice in todays world and innovative spirit is much easily nurtured in private practice world than in academic.

So are there even more constraints to innovations and enterpreneurship in medical devices in academic world though I always see big medical innovations coming out of universities?
If so what are the constraints ?
Can research and clinical trials which are essential for this be done in private practice or is academic < big university name > a must here for grants??
What practice should be pursued for innovation and enterpreneurship in medical devices?
Please help i am really confused.
Any knowledge is appreciated very much. Thanks

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[Redpancreas]

As a medical student, I think that (and i may be wrong) most surgical innovations and medical devices come out of physicians from universities and I find they are co founders to many devices.

But Dr John Alder, Stanford neurosurgeon who invented gamma knife surgery said in the surgeon agent interview that he would actually have been in private practice in todays world and innovative spirit is much easily nurtured in private practice world than in academic.

So are there even more constraints to innovations and enterpreneurship in medical devices in academic world though I always see big medical innovations coming out of universities?
If so what are the constraints ?
Can research and clinical trials which are essential for this be done in private practice or is academic < big university name > a must here for grants??
What practice should be pursued for innovation and enterpreneurship in medical devices?
Please help i am really confused.
Any knowledge is appreciated very much. Thanks

This is just the pontification of one person who's already made it. He's seen the red-tape and negatives of the academic side.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

In the academic world, you have academic time and possible grants and funding to pursue some of these things but the credit will likely be given to the university. In private practice, your job is to make money. So your practice will more likely say “no we are giving you any money or protected time to pursue this project and/or research and in fact, if you have time, we need you to work more.”

I think some cool things are coming out of universities but I am not sure that the majority are. A lot of these innovations come from companies designed to create medical equipment.

 

[aldol16]

As someone who has been in both the academic and business worlds, I can say that the healthcare industry is one of the unique ones where many of the classic business rules don't really get you far (especially when you think about healthcare startups versus startups in other industries). The barriers are regulatory and product/service-market fit.

In terms of regulatory barriers, it's super hard to break onto the scene because everything in medicine is regulated, especially when there's a potential for affecting health outcomes. If you have a new medical device or an idea for one, you need to get data for regulatory approval. To get patient data, you need to have some sort of regulatory approval, which requires some preliminary data. To get preliminary data, you need access to patients, which is relatively easier to obtain when you're collaborating with academia. If you try to collaborate with private practice physicians, you're limiting yourself to a certain demographic of patients and you're going to have to pay them consulting fees (not to say you don't have to for academia - it's just that if an academic is involved in product design / early stage venture, then they'll have skin in the game instead of acting as consultants).

The other reason - product-market fit - is a huge problem when you can't access patients. Successful startups learn to quickly get to a minimum viable product, test it, and iterate or pivot. You can't necessarily do that in healthcare. There are layers of regulations surrounding testing things on patients. The process takes much longer. This is why many of the healthcare startups focus on service delivery instead of products / devices. This type of process - innovation and testing for safety, efficacy, and effectiveness - is much easier in academic practice when you have the support staff to support clinical or pragmatic trials.

 

[Medstd*+]

As someone who has been in both the academic and business worlds, I can say that the healthcare industry is one of the unique ones where many of the classic business rules don't really get you far (especially when you think about healthcare startups versus startups in other industries). The barriers are regulatory and product/service-market fit.

In terms of regulatory barriers, it's super hard to break onto the scene because everything in medicine is regulated, especially when there's a potential for affecting health outcomes. If you have a new medical device or an idea for one, you need to get data for regulatory approval. To get patient data, you need to have some sort of regulatory approval, which requires some preliminary data. To get preliminary data, you need access to patients, which is relatively easier to obtain when you're collaborating with academia. If you try to collaborate with private practice physicians, you're limiting yourself to a certain demographic of patients and you're going to have to pay them consulting fees (not to say you don't have to for academia - it's just that if an academic is involved in product design / early stage venture, then they'll have skin in the game instead of acting as consultants).

The other reason - product-market fit - is a huge problem when you can't access patients. Successful startups learn to quickly get to a minimum viable product, test it, and iterate or pivot. You can't necessarily do that in healthcare. There are layers of regulations surrounding testing things on patients. The process takes much longer. This is why many of the healthcare startups focus on service delivery instead of products / devices. This type of process - innovation and testing for safety, efficacy, and effectiveness - is much easier in academic practice when you have the support staff to support clinical or pragmatic trials.

Thanks a lot. I was wondering what specialty would be better for a medical device startup in the future :neurosurgery or radiology? in terms of potential prospects??or any other specialty?

 

[aldol16]

Thanks a lot. I was wondering what specialty would be better for a medical device startup in the future :neurosurgery or radiology? in terms of potential prospects??or any other specialty?

I think you should decide on a specialty first and then think about how to fit in the startup. I think that either of those fields work with a startup that is, broadly speaking, in the medical device space. Neurosurgery is obviously a much longer training pathway and quite grueling and you probably won't have time during residency to work on your startup. If you have great cofounders and a great team, that's fine. If you're thinking about specialties that will give you a lot of time outside of work to work on the startup then neurosurgery probably isn't the best way to go about it.