Department of Biomedical Engineering

Successful Entrepreneur in Biomedical Devices Offers Advice

The biomedical devices domain is one of the toughest for an entrepreneur to break into. It is highly regulated, not only by the FDA in the United States, but by FDA-comparable regulatory agencies in just about every other developed country, which means a company may have to repeat, at great expense, the same clinical trials that were conducted to gain approval elsewhere. Venture capital is scarce, and many of the remaining VCs are more interested in funding projects that are at or near commercialization rather than start-ups.

So why even venture into medical devices?

Ted Ruppel '88, Executive Vice President of Vascular Dynamics, offered a compelling reason during his presentation, My Medical Device Journey: Failures, Startup Challenges and Lessons Learned, as part of the Center for Entrepreneurship's observance of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

To read more about Ted's recent talk please read the complete article on the Center for Medical Technology Innovation (CMTI) site.