R&D Insights: Small Companies Drive R&D in Today’s Landscape

Mark Schaefer, vice president of business development at Alpharetta, Ga.-based Pexco LLC, and Mike Badera, president of Precision Extrusion Inc., a Pexco company, discussed the state of R&D in medtech today. Pexco makes specialty plastic products.

For more insight into the subject, see MPO’s feature article on the topic from the Jan/Feb issue.

Ranica Arrowsmith: What is the core strategy and mission that drives R&D at your company?


Mark Schaefer and Mike Badera: Our mission is to be the go-to company for new product development. As a Plastic Solutions provider on a contract basis we find ourselves being driven by the unique and demanding challenges our customers come to us for solving. It could be developing novel methods of tool design to accomplish “unmoldable/extrudeable” geometry or tolerances or a new and unique bonding of dissimilar materials, to pushing the limits on minimum wall thicknesses. We need to be involved with R&D at a very early stage to ensure the new products that the customers are trying out are manufacturable and cost effective in order to save the customer precious time and resources.

Arrowsmith: How do you foster innovation in an ever more fast-paced technology world?
Schaefer and Badera: By staying in tune with our customers R and D Departments, not just their procurement team, while working hard to stay on top of equipment and material developments that will allow us to bring the best technology to our customer’s projects. We focus on becoming an integral member of our customers long-term development efforts so that as new materials or needs are uncovered we have worked hand in hand with them to develop actual manufacturing processes capable of meeting these innovative needs. We work hard to be seen as “partners” with our customers not simply a molder/extruder.

Arrowsmith: What is your impression of the state of R&D in the medical device industry at large? What are the factors affecting it right now? Has the medical device tax had any effect?
Schaefer and Badera: R&D continues to be pursued at the OEMs; however, as always much of the actual novel development is done by smaller, focused companies in an effort to bring a better solution to end patient for a single indication. True, some funding may come from a large OEM as often these efforts are privately funded with one exit option always being acquisition by the large OEM. When it comes to catheters going into the body there is a large amount of work being done to continue to downsize the products yet provide more functionality. Unfortunately some of those needs are going unmet due to equipment and material limitations, but that is a driving force for more innovative products to come from outside, more focused suppliers.