A new innovative medical device prototype (for a few thousand dollars)

Minnesota — the land of a thousand lakes and nearly as many struggling life sciences incubators — has a new early stage facilitator that’s getting its sea legs. The Sister Kenny Research Institute has spent the last few years developing an incubator that leverages its mix of clinicians, innovators, graduate students and a tiny bit of cash to drive nascent medical device companies.

“With thousands of dollars, we can get to a proof-of-concept as opposed to hundreds of thousands of dollars externally,” Lars Oddsson, the director of research at the Sister Kenny Research Center, told the Star-Tribune.

The research center, which is part of the Allina health system, takes equity and also applies what it learns from the startups to improve healthcare delivery. In turn, the center provides some capital, helps with grants, leverages some graduate students and provides access to its network of clinicians. Organizers think it’s the ideal time to build this model because it’s increasingly harder to get early stage dollars in the medical device space.

Their focus is on wellness, prevention and cost containment. The group is setting up a seed fund right now.

The center is different in part because they’re an incubator along the lines of a Rock Health but with a built-in collection of healthcare customers and experts right there that can make it easy for the entrepreneur to access necessary resources and feedback. But they’re not a venturing arm like Cleveland Clinic Innovations.

The Sister Kenny Research Center has at least four products in its portfolio:

• StepWiz, which makes a device that can measure and predict future falling from a patient;
• SKOTEE, a personal robot to help with home healthcare and increase adoption of telemedicine;
• SmartSock, a sock designed to help patients who are at risk of falling;
• Flamingo, a medical device that places stroke patients in a virtual reality environment that teaches them to regain their balance even as they are lying down.

Three of the four companies are the work of Oddsson and none have exited. The next step for the incubator is to scale: draw in additional innovations from outside entrepreneurs, apply the low-cost approach and make it work.

[Photo courtesy of Xandert]