Accelerator Program

A New Model for Medical Device Commercialization

It is difficult to introduce an innovative medical device into the marketplace, and many clinicians do not have the business expertise to plan for the many stages involved in commercializing a new product. The Accelerator program was created to provide innovators with support and specialized expertise in intellectual property protection, patents and licensing, technology implementation, regulatory issues, fundraising, commercialization, and much more. Its benefits to entrepreneurs, academic hospitals and investors ultimately supports CIMIT's mission to rapidly improving patient care by facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration.

Watch the video below and download the corresponding presentation slides to learn about the Accelerator program—overview, selection criteria, expectations and outcomes—from Michael Dempsey, CIMIT's Entrepreneur in Residence and Accelerator Program Leader.

Objectives

The goal of the CIMIT Accelerator program is to find, fund and facilitate technological innovations that have a reasonable chance of a handoff to industry or widespread clinical adoption within 12 to 18 months. During this window of opportunity, the CIMIT Accelerator team works intimately with a project team to not only derisk the solution, but also to develop and execute a complete strategy for getting the solution into practice.

Eligibility

The Accelerator program invests in teams, not technology, so to be considered for the program, the project or principal investigator must be known to CIMIT, the project team and PI must accept "heavy facilitation" by CIMIT and the project team must complete an impact plan.

Selection Criteria

The ideal accelerator project culminates with working prototypes, identified customers who are "ready to buy", and a complete business plan that is fundable by outside parties (be they investors, established businesses or licensees). Projects are selected for the Accelerator program based on criteria such as market size, strength of intellectual property, and market competitiveness.

Projects

Since launching in July 2010, the Accelerator program has selected four projects, each of which has received approximately $200,000 in funding.

• CIMIT CoLab™: A secure, cloud-based platform developed by Induct Software, The Open Innovation Company™ that enables a team, group, network or institution to encourage, manage and measure innovation. It provides a vehicle to connect the needs of healthcare institutions, universities, medical foundations, and other non-profits with the vast experience, insight and innovative talents of their staff, faculty, industry partners, advisors, and patients within or beyond their physical and/or virtual borders to accelerate the impact of innovations.
• HanGenix Comprehensive Hand Hygiene Solution: A comprehensive hand hygiene solution that reminds clinicians to perform proper hand hygiene and document their compliance. The technology solution is based on an integrated system for monitoring, reminding and capturing data with respect to hand hygiene compliance within zones of patient care.
• Mass General Hospital Health and Wellness Kiosk (HAWK): A portable, ATM-like, kiosk-based system for automating aspects of the care delivery process to improve efficiency, better manage patient populations and help provide access to basic healthcare diagnostic information.
• Cell Research Core (CRC) Liver Reperfusion Solution: A highly innovative solution to reperfuse livers to help make them viable for research and possibly human transplant.