In Europe, a Medical Device Accelerator Takes Root

One of Europe's leading venture capital firms, Paris-based Sofinnova Partners, and device-industry powerhouse Medtronic PLC have announced plans to launch a new medical device incubator or accelerator in Europe—born out of what executives at both companies see as a fundamental disconnect between the clinical and technological richness of Europe and the practical reality of starting a company there. The new organization, designed to take advantage of what both companies believe is a wealth of untapped potential for new device ideas from European physicians, is located on the campus of the Ecole Polytechnique Federal Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), one of the leading technical institutes in Europe.

"If you look at the top 100 products that we sell at Medtronic--coronary stents or angioplasty, artificial disks or cardiac resynchronization or deep brain stimulation--and ask simply, where did the idea come from, what you find is that almost 100% of the time they came from physicians and, in many cases, physicians located somewhere in Europe," says Stephen Oesterle, MD, Medtronic's SVP for medicine and technology, who points to Swiss innovators like Andreas Gruntzig, MD, the father of angioplasty, and Ulrich Sigwart, MD, who