5 Things You Need to Know About Medtech Startups and Product Development

Those working in the medical technology space know the unique challenge of launching a product (and company) in the medtech domain. For those thinking about this space, or in the midst of working to build a medtech product and company, here are a few of the special challenges you will face compared to creating a consumer, commercial, or industrial product: Costs to develop a medtech product are significantly higher than other kinds of products. While there significant cost savings is possible when creating a Class II device, compared with a Class I device, the costs to realize a truly medically beneficial product is several times (and maybe 10 times) higher than creating a consumer product with “nice to have” health-monitoring features. One obvious example is a wearable device meant to monitor heart rates. Virtually anyone can go out and, inexpensively, get a wearable to monitor heart rates targeted for general fitness/wellness applications. That know-how is virtually commoditized and is predicated on not needing medical-grade accuracy, dependability, and consistency. As an example, it takes a heck of a lot longer to create an accurate and reliable medical-grade wearable to monitor heart rate—especially if one wants to monitor heart rate profiles. For a casual consumer, the ultimate accuracy may not be particularly important; relative performance is adequate in a device for medical applications, precise performance is critical. As with anything, the harder it is to...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Design News Source Type: news