Florida Medical Device Startup Targets University-Licensed Technology to Fuel Product Pipeline

For many medical institutions and universities, commercializing patented innovations developed by their researchers, physicians and other inventors can be a constant challenge. Taking an idea all the way to market is difficult, and successes are rare.

A new company in Tampa, Fla., wants to change that.

Medical Device Investments (MDI) was created to commercialize medical devices and technology licensed from universities, hospitals and physicians. MDI develops, manufactures and markets the products, with the intent of selling them to major manufacturers for distribution to hospitals, surgery centers and doctors’ offices worldwide.

“We wanted to create a business in which new devices are constantly being identified, developed and brought to market,” said CEO Doug Martin. “Too many worthwhile products end up sitting on a shelf collecting dust.”

MDI focuses on products designed to improve patient care and reduce hospital-acquired complications, such as infections, which result in lower hospital profits. Many of MDI’s licensed technologies are patented improvements on commonly used products.

Martin, a board member for the Tampa Bay Innovation Center, founded the company with Allen Craig, Scott Hampton and Matthew Miller. MDI added Matthew Otten to lead the company’s subsidiary, MDI Engineering, which supplies design, engineering and prototyping services to MDI as well as external device industry clients.

Since incorporating in September, MDI has obtained the licensing rights to six devices invented at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, including five by anesthesiologist Tariq Chaudhry, M.D., and two interventional cardiology catheters by cardiologist Hitinder Gurm, M.D., at the University of Michigan.

MDI’s initial portfolio of products includes the Safe Clip, which is used with intravenous catheters to prevent blood loss, and the Brachytherapy Safe Catheter, which is used with high dose-rate brachytherapy to block cancer-fighting radioactive pellets from damaging healthy organs. All of MDI’s products are in various stages of development, with the Safe Clip the closest to manufacturing and distribution, most likely in the next year. Once the company reaches 12 products under concurrent development, MDI plans an initial public offering.

According to MDI’s leadership, the company differs from other startup device companies in that it works with multiple products simultaneously to spread overhead costs and reduce risk, rather than concentrate on one product that may take years and millions of dollars to develop.

“Having products at different points in the development process ensures a more steady revenue stream for investing in new technologies and eliminates wasted resources involved in waiting for a product to reach its next milestone,” officials said in a press release.

“No one in the industry is taking this approach,” Martin said. “We want to become a self-sustaining engine for developing products that benefit from economies of scale. Our vision is to become a Center of Excellence for the commercialization of innovative medical technologies.”