Innovation in the Medical Device Industry | Bionix® Insights

Innovation Discussion with Bionix^®

Looking to better understand medical device innovation and how to select the right partner for your idea or invention?

Through this Q&A discussion with Bionix^® Product Development Manager Cody Harder and Bionix President Chris Becker, you’ll better understand the importance of medical device innovation—and how the right partner can help effectively bring your idea to life.

How do you define innovation?

Chris Becker: I personally view innovation as a new way of performing a task—or simply solving a problem that maximizes value to the user.  

Cody Harder: To me, innovation is more than a descriptor. While it has become an industry buzzword often used alongside “new” or “exciting,” innovation is really the product of dedicated, empathetic inventors who have been empowered to challenge the status quo. Innovation can come in many forms—but the overall goal is to improve the outcomes of patients.

Why is innovation important to Bionix^®, the medical device industry and your customers?

Cody Harder: Over the years, we have continually provided our customers with innovative tools to improve patient outcomes. Our customer base is comprised of the most dedicated and hardworking people on the planet, and I feel it’s my responsibility to do my part to continue our legacy of pushing for safer, more effective ways to perform procedures.

Chris Becker: Innovation is truly about constant improvement in the way we accomplish our goals. At Bionix, it’s the foundation of our relationships with our customers, and it’s what drives the medical industry forward, allowing healthcare professionals to provide a higher level of care for their patients—and ultimately creating better outcomes.

What do you want your partners or customers to keep in mind about innovation?

Cody Harder: Innovation is not something that can be forced; it comes from fostering the right mindset and environment. I would push our partners—or anyone in their day-to-day work—to keep an open mind and question the status quo.

Chris Becker: Innovation comes in many forms, and it doesn’t always have to be a high-tech, complicated product. Bionix believes in bringing simple innovation to the market that can have a major impact on solving procedural problems faced every single day by clinicians. 

What is Bionix’s approach to innovation?

Cody Harder: Innovation in the medical device industry must always start with empathy. In order to properly create a positive outcome, we must fully understand the scope of the issue being addressed. At Bionix, we try to foster an environment of open ideation and input generation for problem solving, and the cross-functional nature of our review teams has led to some of our most inventive product features.

Chris Becker: Innovation also must start with identifying a problem. We look for common procedural challenges that our customers experience every day and have discovered that many times, clinicians are coming up with their own homemade device to solve a problem that lacks the right tool. Once we’ve highlighted a common problem, we set out to develop an innovative solution to that problem that delivers significant value to our customer or potential customer.

Where do new product ideas for Bionix primarily come from?

Chris Becker: Historically, the primary source of product ideas for Bionix was internal, many coming from one of our founders who was a successful practicing pediatrician. Over the last five to seven years, though, we’ve worked hard to establish a network of relationships with clinicians, inventors and technology transfer departments. This network continues to grow and is now the primary source of new product ideas for Bionix.

We are always looking to connect with that next innovator who has a great idea and needs the right partner to help bring it to life.

What makes Bionix one of the top medical device companies and sets it apart from its competition?

Chris Becker: I believe what really sets Bionix apart from other medical device companies is our people and their commitment to our customers, the company and each other. We have become one of the top medical device companies by continually showcasing empathy for our customers’ experiences and daily challenges and focusing on a culture of collaboration to help us best serve healthcare professionals and their patients.

Cody Harder: Bionix is unique in its ongoing dedication to simple innovation. While innovation is often associated with robotic surgery, deep brain stimulation or pharmaceuticals, Bionix prescribes to the idea that no innovation is too small or too simple. We believe that there are opportunities to improve patient outcomes all over health care and that innovative ideas don’t have to come from scientists and researchers.

Additionally, we have consistently maintained a stance that we will not introduce a product to the market unless it provides a distinct advantage over the competitive landscape, and we avoid moving a product to market that does not provide the user with an innovative feature or technique.

What does Bionix offer a potential innovation partner that other companies cannot?

Cody Harder: Bionix provides an intimate, cooperative, collaborative environment that most medical device companies interested in commercializing new technologies cannot. Additionally, Bionix offers the experience of working with healthcare inventors and innovators with 35+ years of experience while maintaining the open-minded and collaborative atmosphere that comes with a small company.

Do your potential partners need to have a concrete idea for a new product or just a pain point?

Chris Becker: The Bionix development team can help at a variety of stages of progress, from taking a problem and developing the solution to working from an initial prototype of design and improving upon it for maximum value. Overall, we prefer to partner with an inventor as early as possible so that we can engage our resources for the best outcomes from day one. 

What criteria does Bionix follow when deciding to work with a new partner? How does that collaborative relationship work as you create new devices?

Cody Harder: Bionix evaluates every submission on an individual basis, including (but not limited to) market opportunity, intellectual property and reimbursement. While these criteria help us to understand the scope of the project, there is no specific criteria that immediately precludes a partnership from moving forward.

All submitted ideas are reviewed by our cross-functional team which is comprised of leaders from our entire organization who have a wealth of medical device experience. Bionix is primarily interested in bringing simple, innovative devices to the market, and our development team is dedicated to identifying those opportunities—regardless of the project scope.

We strive to include our partners in every step of the development process, from initial design input all the way through participating in our product launches. We are truly committed to sharing any and all information that we compile in support of the submitted project. We want to respect the time and effort that went into the project and always seek to reciprocate with a commensurate amount of time and attention from our team.

What’s the first step when working with a potential partner on a new product?

Chris Becker: We always begin our relationship by giving our new partner the confidence that their idea is protected by signing a non-disclosure agreement before accepting an idea submission.

Cody Harder: After signing the non-disclosure agreement, we work to establish the project scope and truly define the problem. We have a wonderful network of healthcare professionals who help us to validate the problem we are looking to solve. We will also work to establish the expectations of both sides of the partnership to ensure it’s mutually beneficial.

What is the typical process for research and development of new products?

Chris Becker: We use a phase-gate process for development. Phase one includes evaluation of the market opportunity, development of a value proposition and developing the design criteria that will be used in the final design. Phase two then focuses on the design and development of the final product. Phase three is the commercialization stage where the design is transferred to manufacturing, and the product is then commercialized. 

Cody Harder: Our work doesn’t stop at product launch, though. We continue to engage our users in the field to gather feedback and improvement suggestions. Our sales team continues to work in the field to monitor our products and ensure that we are providing the clinical benefit that we identified when the project began.

What does Bionix offer potential partners that makes the partnership worthwhile?

Cody Harder: Bionix has established itself as a market leader for innovative products, and many of our customers recognize us as a source for problem solving devices. We are not in the business of flooding the market with low-cost alternatives or copycat products. Rather, Bionix can provide our partners with a captive audience that seeks the type of innovative technologies that we develop.

Chris Becker: Most inventors do not have the access to the resources that Bionix does, and many are not even sure where to start. Bionix has an efficient process to go from idea to finished product quickly, as well as an effective commercialization strategy and network to get the product into the hands of clinicians around the world. We continually work closely with the partner to develop the product idea so that the final version provides maximum value for clinicians. Our partner will get to participate in bringing the product to life and get to see the impact that it has on clinicians and their patients around the world.

What advice would you want to offer potential new medical device innovators?

Chris Becker: If you believe in your idea, don’t take no for an answer. Continue to push forward. Tap into the many resources that are out there to support you. And, make sure that you choose the right partner who shares in the vision you have for your product idea and has a track record of developing and commercializing innovative products that help people.

Cody Harder: Meaningful innovation can only happen if you are passionate about helping healthcare workers improve patient care, as the path to commercializing a medical device is seldom straightforward or easy. If you are not passionate about improving patient care, then your product will be obsolete before you even get to market.

You should also be prepared to fail at times, as failure is inevitable in the innovation process. But, quickly learning from your failures will position you to adapt to your environment and produce meaningful results. Keep an open mind and foster an environment that allows your team—or yourself—to ideate openly and without inhibition.

Submit Your Innovative Solution

At Bionix, we are always searching for unique and practical devices that offer innovative solutions to everyday problems. If you have a product idea or concept, reach out to us today to start collaborating on further improving patient care and outcomes.