What are the challenges and opportunities in introducing new technologies to the market for modern healthcare?
Birmingham is building on its industrial tradition and creating an ecosystem that accelerates the path of medical technologies into clinical practice. The speaker, an academic with over 20 years of experience and five products taken all the way to trials, explained why a good idea is not enough. The key is to tackle manufacturing, regulation, IP, and economics from day one, when the technology first starts working. The development of medical technologies is full of bottlenecks where innovation often fails—from scalable manufacturing through the protection of intellectual property to poorly planned clinical trials. The speaker showed three products from the same sugar molecules: a barrier spray reached the market in 14 months, lubricating eye drops have a different regulatory regime, and a simple wound dressing took years to develop. Same material, different purpose—and therefore a different device class, costs, and time. Therefore it is not enough for a product to work and for doctors to want it; from the outset you need to understand the market pathway, regulation, and reimbursement.Obstacles on medtech’s path to clinical practice
