Building research-led innovation in the medical technology sector
Prof Sally McArthur
Director, Innovation Precinct, Swinburne University of Technology
Jacqueline Savage
Director, MedCorp Technologies
Time: 20 September 2016, 18:30 AEDT (Networking from 18:00)
Venue: The Unicorn Club, MHSOBA Melbourne High School, Forrest Hill, South Yarra
Australia has an active and successful industry sector in biomedical devices and diagnostics. Companies such as Cochlear, Resmed and CSL have achieved iconic status as symbols of Australian innovation success. The broader commercial potential of the sector is widely recognised, but the future success of the industry remains dependent on a strong innovation pipeline and the development of skilled personnel to ensure continuing competitiveness in the knowledge economy.
In 2015, the ARC Centre for Biodevices and Diagnostics launched at Swinburne with a team of 10 PhD students, 3 Research Fellows, and up 8 industry and end-user focused
partners. Funded through a $1.8M Australian Research Council (ARC) grant, the centre takes a “design-led” approach to R&D, where the PhD (Technology Innovation) program is driven by end-user needs, rather than by academic priorities. Multidisciplinary groups of students have spent time in hospitals, clinics, aged-care facilities and on the factory floor, talking to end-users and industry partners and looking for gaps in the market. Supported by mentors from industry and academia, the students have each identified a key insight into a range of problems and opened up the potential for innovative research-led solutions.
After selecting the most compelling opportunities, the students generated multiple possible solutions for each opportunity and took ownership of the best projects that matched their skill set and pitch them to the industry partner to then select projects totake forward into the R&D phase.
Having established their project, industry partner and supervisory team, the students have developed a detailed business plan including project resources and budget, strategies for IP management, clinical trials, quality and risk management, regulatory approval and commercialization. This now acts as a central component of the verification and validation process undertaken through the rest of the R&D phases of the project and delivery of the completed project.
This talk will discuss what we are learning about industry-university collaborations in research training as we progress through the Centre activities and discuss the opportunities for future end-user led, industry-focused research in the MedTech sector.