M2D2 Holds Third Venture Competition

The Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2), in partnership with Boston-based law firm Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP and orthopedic medical technology business Smith & Nephew Inc., is hosting the third annual new venture competition to showcase the nation’s best innovative medical device ideas by startup companies. This year’s event will focus on the fields of orthopedic reconstruction, sports medicine and trauma.

M2D2 is a joint initiative of the Lowell and Worcester campuses of the UMass (University of Massachussetts) system that helps new medical device entrepreneurs develop products from proof-of-concept to commercialization. Since its inception in 2007, more than 100 clients have been supported by the program.

This year’s competition prizes, worth a total of $50,000, include $25,000 in services from M2D2 for product development (such as engineering and prototyping), business development (business plans and market development) and medical development (clinician consultation, animal trials, etc.); the use of M2D2 laboratory space; $15,000 in legal services from Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP and $10,000 in services from Smith & Nephew.

One of last year’s winners was Little Sparrows Technologies, a company that makes Bili-Hut, a phototherapy device for jaundiced babies.

“Severe brain injury and death from neonatal jaundice is a global tragedy that should never happen,” said Donna Brezinski, M.D., founder and CEO of Little Sparrows, at an address to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2012. “Delivery of effective phototherapy to every baby that needs it is the solution.”

The other winners were Boston, Mass.-based Cellanyx Diagnostics Inc., which is working towards providing a lab service that offers “critical prognostic information before the radical prostatectomy decision point,” according to the company website; and Burlington, Mass.-based BioSignostix, which is working on handheld, minimally-invasive diagnostic probes for specific neurological conditions that are manifestations of metabolic disorders, infectious diseases or autoimmune illnesses.