Got a medical device idea that could change lives or significantly impact the healthcare system? Kickstart it through the Medical Device Commercialisation Training Program!
My MDCTP experience and what I learnt
The title says it all; The Medical Device Commercialisation Training Program (MDCTP). Even then it’s hard to understand how this may be relevant to you if you are a clinician or researcher working in a clinical or academic setting.
Researchers and clinicians are at the forefront of changing health and medicine around the world. However, it’s a challenge to take an innovative and impactful idea that you may have, and translate it into a commercial reality. The language, the pathway, and the environment is different to a traditional academic one.
The MDCTP is a program designed to bridge that gap.
This is a training program designed to equip you with new skills or refine the ones you may already have. This is a program that will push you a little out of your comfort zone so that you can think differently and approach your research or idea with a new perspective. This is a program that allows you to map out the journey that your idea or product would need to get to the end user successfully so that you can impact the world.
So if you have an idea that could revolutionise health, then this is the program for you!
I myself did this course in 2015. Even though my startup had been around for 5 years, I still found so much value in what the course had to offer. The MDCTP allowed me to put real data around my product validation, learn to better identify and map out my customer base, and refine my pitch technique so that I could communicate my science to anyone at all. It was like a special pair of specs: I gained a whole new perspective and the value from this course is still applied to my work today.
For me, it was about being able to navigate both the commercial and research worlds to better execute my product so that it could do what it aimed to do: impact lives.
I set aside the one day a week for 12 weeks that MDCTP required for me to improve not only my start up, but also myself. The course was free and it seemed like a wasted opportunity to not give it 100%.
I was awarded an international engagement scholarship — which was amazing — but I also came out of the program as a member of the Cicada community; connecting to their incredible network was something which was invaluable and still a part of my life today. The long term benefits from the MDCTP have shaped my career, my company, and myself.
I am one of the 80 graduates of MDCTP Core since its launch in 2014. Here are some of our other MDCTP Alumni stories and successes.
Ali Fathi (PhD), Trimph, Co-founder and Director, MDCTP 2014
Trimph Technology Pty Ltd is an Australian biomaterials company that has developed a platform technology for repair of bone, cartilage and connective tissue. Their first product is TrimphDent, an injectable scaffold applied immediately after tooth extraction, has been developed specifically for dental applications and aims to improve success rates and recovery of oral surgeries.
Ali is a Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering who incorporated Trimph after coming out of MDCTP in 2015. Since its incorporation in August 2015, Trimph has secured more than $3.4 million in both private and public sources, including NSW-Health special grant, $1m from the Medical Device Fund (2018) and Accelerating Commercialisation grant. Trimph has developed its own sterile facility in Alexandria, Sydney, which is a key asset for the company from IP protection and quality control point of view. Recently, TrimphDent was administered to the first patient in Australia.
Robert Gorkin (PhD, MBA), Eudaemon Technologies, Co-founder, MDCTP 2015
Rob is a biomedical engineer and holds a PhD and MBA. He is a serial entrepreneur and also leads an Australian Graphene solutions company called Imagine Intelligent Materials.
Eudeamon Technologies are developing the next-generation, non-allergenic condom. It is hydro-gel based and blocks, sperm, viral molecules and bacteria that cause STIs. They have secured $1 million from the Medical Device Fund in 2018 and also have a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation innovation grant.
Thomas Millar, Beyond 700, Co-founder and CEO, MDCTP 2016
Originally an academic with a PhD at Western Sydney University investigating tear film and dry eye, Thomas is now CEO of Beyond 700. Beyond 700 is a medical device company that has developed a device to visualise the tear film in real time so that eye surface diseases can easily be diagnosed. Thomas found that the MDCTP enhanced Beyond 700’s capacity to be determined, resilient, attentive and inventive leaders; characteristics highly desired by investors. Even after the MDCTP, Thomas valued the continued support through the networks gained, irrespective of whether or not the specific project succeeded. He found that those who did the course walked away with a toolkit and portfolio that could be applied across a broad spectrum of endeavours beyond medical devices. In 2019 they received $830,000 from the Medical Device Fund.
Sarah Macdonald, 2017, Baymatob, Founder and CEO, MDCTP 2017
Sarah is a mechatronic engineer, founder and CEO of Baymatob. She started working in the obstetric technology space after the traumatic birth of her second child, Oliver. Determined to improve the technology available for obstetric monitoring, Sarah embarked on a PhD focused on understanding the normal progression of labour. It was during this PhD that Sarah encountered and applied for NSW Health’s Medical Device Commercialisation Training Program.
Since graduating from the Program as part of the 2017 cohort, Sarah has completed her PhD in medicine, established Baymatob as a company and progressed development of the Oli technology. The learnings and experience provided by the MDCTP were instrumental in setting the foundations to this success. This has assisted the company to further develop the Oli technology, broaden research and clinical relationships, enabling the company to gain further supporting data from both animal and clinical sources.
Sarah won three MDCTP awards and also went on to receive funding from the Medical Device Fund, not once, but twice ($1.47m in 2017, and $2.96m in 2019).
Maryam Parviz and Iman Manavitehrani, SDIP Innovations, Co-founders, CEO and Director, MDCTP 2017
SDIP Innovations Pty Ltd aims to provide the first credible generation of safe bioresorbable implants. This implant material which dissolves from bulk and degrades harmlessly into water and carbon dioxide within the body. This platform reduces the need for repeat surgeries and improves post-surgery recovery without adverse cyst and inflammation.
The technology was co-invented by Iman during his Ph.D. at the University of Sydney. Together with Maryam, who is a biomedical engineer with a PhD in nanomedicine and chemistry, Iman founded SDIP Innovations in May 2018. Both founders successfully graduated from the MDCTP in recent years. Since then, they have established robust IP protection; secured private and public funds, completed several animal studies were awarded the NSW-QB3 Rosenman Institute Scholarship which provided space space within the QB3 medtech incubator in San Francisco for two years (2019- 2021).
Applications now open!
We have opened applications for the 2020 CORE Medical Device Commercialisation Training Program.
The Medical Device Commercialisation Training Program (MDCTP) is delivered by Cicada Innovations in partnership with NSW Health, the program sponsor. The program is designed to accelerate commercialisation of medical technologies in NSW to bring lifesaving healthcare innovations to patients, hospitals and governments around the world.
The MDCTP CORE offers an invaluable opportunity to NSW based medical device technologists to build knowledge, skills and network needed to successfully commercialise medical device technologies.
Applicants may apply from Startups, Universities, Research Institutes, the NSW Health System and Industry.
Since 2014, 80 graduates of CORE have launched 15 companies and raised over $53M to commercialise their ideas. Graduates of CORE are eligible for post-program support (Product Development Award, International Discovery Grants, Intellectual Property Strategy Award, Regulatory Strategy Award and Cicada Innovations Incubation Award)
It is also free!
Applications close: 27 OCT 19
Apply now here.
If you are or know a researcher, clinician, or entrepreneur with a new solution for improving patient outcomes, then this program will be a highly beneficial experience for bringing that solution to commercial reality.
Cicada Innovations is holding two information sessions in the next month to provide attendees with the opportunity to understand everything the program has to offer, including meeting some of the MDCTP Alumni.
Tea, coffee, and afternoon tea provided so please register your attendance here.
Please share this link with postgraduate researchers, final year PhD students, clinicians and representatives from NSW university tech transfer offices, hospitals, and research organisations.
Any questions, email: dharmica@cicadainnovations.com
