Germany–US alliance in medical devices bears the first fruit

The meeting was held under the auspices of the Boston University–Fraunhofer Alliance for Medical Devices, Instrumentation and Diagnostics collaboration, which was launched at the beginning of 2007.

“Fraunhofer has its own innovation strategies that are based on the close collaboration between basic research and applied engineering,” said Hans-Jörg Bullinger, President of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. “The new Boston University–Fraunhofer Alliance for Medical Devices, Instrumentation and Diagnostics is not only a wonderful example of a close collaboration between outstanding researchers,” explains Bullinger, “It is also part of our strategy in the US, that focuses on emerging areas, such as biotech/biomedical technologies.”

Anke Hellwig from the Fraunhofer International Business Development added, “The Alliance is part of the industry-Fraunhofer-academic network which we have established at several locations in the US, combining excellent university expertise with the technology transfer competence which Fraunhofer is known for.”

Based in Boston

Boston is the ideal place for the medical technology alliance,” says Andre Sharon, director of the Fraunhofer Centre for Manufacturing Innovation (CMI). “Engineers, researchers and medical doctors have been working here hand in hand for a number of years.”

The new network links together engineers at CMI to biomedical researchers at Boston University. This team, in turn, works closely with doctors in hospitals and clinics such as the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Sharon, who also holds tenure as Professor of Manufacturing Engineering at Boston University, said, “This gives us a tremendous advantage in developing commercial medical products."

The CMI premises are practically next door to the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, allowing researchers to meet whenever they like to discuss problems or develop new ideas. Together the teams have already developed a new manufacturing system for DNA arrays.

“Of course, this collaboration had its challenges,” said Sharon. “To start with, engineers and biochemists talk in different languages. They needed to learn how to communicate using the same terms. Then, there were also technical problems that had to be solved."

Despite these challenges, an automated production machine to produce DNA arrays has been developed and is being used to produce arrays for diagnostics experiments.

Both Fraunhofer and Boston University have agreed to provide funding for the new alliance for a period of five years, a total budget of $5 million. From 2012 onward, the research teams will be expected to be self-supporting, financing any further research through independent project revenues. Any resulting revenues and licence-fee earnings are to be shared equitably between Fraunhofer and Boston University.

The research teams intend to conduct at least two joint projects a year, aiming to develop at least two prototypes ready to be commercialised. These products will be brought to the market either by a spin-off company, or by licensing to a business partner