The Brisbane entrepreneurs who cut through US red tape to develop medical devices

A Brisbane medical innovation start-up is revolutionising medical product development in Australia and the US1 by creating their latest product from concept to US FDA approval at two and a half times faster and 65 times cheaper than the US average timeframe and cost to develop a medical device.

Orthopaedic innovation and devices company Field Orthopaedics has been operating for two years and their unique, collaborative business model is based on immersion of the medical and engineering disciplines with world-renowned surgeons rather than the traditional silo method of product development.

This has resulted in total costs of just less than $600,000 for the development of their latest product, the Field Micro Screw, which is a 98.46 per cent reduction on the $39 million average cost to bring a low-to-moderate-risk 510(k) product from concept to clearance (according to the November 2010 'FDA Impact on US Medical Technology Innovation' report).

Field Orthopaedics CEO Dr Chris Jeffery (pictured left), who along with co-founder Dr James Fielding (right) was named as a finalist in Business News Australia's Brisbane Young Entrepreneur Awards 2017, says their business model has overhauled the traditionally expensive, time-consuming and complicated task of medical device development and creation. Read more

Business News Australia - 16 Feb 2018