Robert Reif, Chair of the Firm's Business Law practice and a Member of the Health Care and Life Sciences practice in the Washington, D.C., office, was quoted in an article about how product incubators help physician entrepreneurs bring their innovative ideas to market.
The article discussed how physician inventors working today to develop, test and market medical devices travel a road strewn with a great deal more regulatory twists and turns than half a century ago. What's more, the cost of getting their inventions to market is exponentially more expensive. Still, regulators, manufacturers and providers all agree that physicians are essential to innovation. The article mentioned how certain states have established incubators where fledging medical-product entrepreneurs can tap a variety of resources to help them develop their products and raise capital.
"Those incubators are really very useful organizations that help entrepreneurs move along," said Reif. He continued by saying that physicians typically take one of two paths into the world of medical-product innovation: either as a medical-institution faculty member involved with research and development of a technology, or as a "quintessential garage tinkerer" who independently develops a technology.
"The first stage is finding someone willing to make an investment," Reif said. "In that first phase, it's not typically equity investors, but angel investors: family and friends who want to support your work."