NYU Langone is blurring the line between doctor and inventor.
The medical center’s new MedTech Pipeline has med students, residents and fellows identifying real-world clinical problems — then developing prototypes and devices to solve them.
Trainees do “all the cool things that tech startups do,” Dr. Insoo Suh, the program’s architect, told NYNext. “They brainstorm, they buy parts at Home Depot, they put together first iterations and then get more sophisticated, they start using all sorts of tools to show people what this could really look like.”
The nine-month program capped off its inaugural year in late May, with three teams pitching ideas to a panel of NYU chairs, healthcare venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.
“The medical device and technology industries are completely outside the curriculum of medical schools,” said Suh, a practicing endocrine surgeon and Langone’s vice chair of surgical innovation. “What we’re trying to do is fill the gap.”
The ophthalmology team presented a novel procedure to counteract progressive myopia, a type of nearsightedness that worsens over time.
The minimally invasive surgery team showcased a device to improve visualization and movability during liver surgeries.
The $25,000 prize, however, went to the pediatrics team for their design of “Kedge,” a device that secures life-supporting ECMO tubes to critically ill newborns — and alerts doctors if those tubes start to shift, giving them time to act before the situation turns deadly.
ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, is used when a patient’s heart or lungs — or both — can’t function on their own. The procedure requires inserting thin tubes, which circulate blood and circumvent the failing organs, into the neck.
Traditionally, these tubes are secured manually to infants with sutures and surgical tape — an unnervingly low-tech fix in such a delicate and high-tech environment. If the tubes fall out of place, the mortality rate is near 100%.
“As a pediatric surgeon, we see patients on ECMO almost every day,” Dr. Barbara Coons, mentor of the pediatrics team and a practicing surgeon at NYU Grossman’s School of Medicine, told NYNext. “To develop a product that could make it safer is incredible.”
This year’s program featured nine trainees — seven medical students, one resident and one fellow — selected from a pool of 25 applicants. The program isn’t part of their traditional schooling, but akin to extracurricular learning.
While comparable programs often curtail doctors to largely consultative roles — describing problems so engineers can build solutions — the MedTech Pipeline sets itself apart by placing doctors squarely in charge of the innovative process. It’s an extremely hands-on affair.
“I thought this would be a very academic exercise,” Dr. James Moon, a surgery fellow on the winning team, told NY Next. “But developing our product, getting our pitch together and this award money — these are real steps to making this product viable, a reality.”
Trainees spend the first several months of the program in hospitals, interviewing patients, observing procedures and cataloging friction points.
“That’s where the light bulb happens,” Dr. Suh said, “and through that they start inventing.”
Concurrently, trainees work with team mentors and program leadership to develop their business acumen. They ascertain market size, study the competitive landscape and potential regulatory hurdles, then design a plan to support their solution.
Prototype construction happens out of the Tech4Health Institute, Langone’s research and development hub, located in Long Island City.
Part classroom, part machine shop, it houses everything from fabrication equipment to digital modeling software — all the resources necessary for trainees to build their early-stage devices.
Inventing and implementing a new medical device typically takes five to 10 years and involves clearing a number of regulatory hurdles. But Suh is bullish on the life-saving — and life-changing — capacity of the devices his program is developing.
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“We’re in the early stages but we have a lot of momentum behind us,” he said. “We’re looking at milestones of increments: we want to see that our inventions are patentable. That they’re fundable. That investors are willing to take a bet.
“Eventually,” he concluded, “maybe we have a device that’s treating tens of thousands, maybe millions.”
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