Medico-tech Basics

Company 4 is a newly founded Danish medico-tech (medico technology) research and development company. The company is a spinout from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), and was established in September 1999 based on results and experience gained from five years of research at DTU in the field of miniaturization of chemical and biochemical analysis.

The proprietary technology of Company 4 is built around a unique sensor, which enables easy-to-perform, precise diagnostics on a blood droplet from the fingertip.

The development focus of Company 4 is on medical Point-of-Care diagnostic tests, which address important detection and monitoring needs within healthcare. As a response to the growing demand from patients for fast and competent answers and treatment, there is a strong move towards decentralization of medical diagnostic

procedures, moving them from the laboratory to the patient - to the Point-of-Care.

History of the company

The company was established in 1999 and the company founder received his PhD from DTU in 2000. In 2001 Company 4 moved from the buildings of the Technical University of Denmark to new office and laboratory facilities at Symbion Science Park in Copenhagen. The same year Company 4 obtained substantial funding from different Danish venture capital and institutional investors, and a new Chief

Executive Officer was appointed. Simultaneously the founder was appointed Chief Technical Officer. In 2002 a Mechanics Development Manager and a Chief Scientific Officer was appointed, and the number of employees has by now reached 12, and is increasing by approximately one person monthly. Due to this speed in growing the company is expected to move to new and lager premises next year.

Links with academia

Due to the founder’s background as a PhD. student at the Technical University of Denmark a network of researchers at different university departments primarily at DTU are available. But these contacts are mainly informal and no research- or development projects are being conducted in collaboration with university

departments. This lack of collaboration is mainly due to the fact that the company has left the research-intensive stages and is presently working on the very product

specific development. According to the founder’s belief this kind of development is impossible to carry out in collaboration with others. Even though he finds the thought of keeping close contact with his educational basis very reasonable he is questioning the way such a contact could be managed. Company 4 has recently been engaged in a process of creating a center contract together with partners at DTU, but the attempt failed because the company didn’t find the formal framework, e.g. the handling of property rights, to be compatible with their current stage of development. Some of the political initiatives, such as the center contracts, are regarded to be more in favor of larger companies than the small and newly established ones. Being a newly settled company solemnly based on financing from different venture capitalists makes it difficult to engage in long-term research and development projects with academia.

The contracts with venture capital firms are often based on the premises that some specified timed conditions has to be meet; successive development stages or trances have to be fulfilled to gain further financing. In the opinion of company 4’s founder these conditions are not consistent with the way the university-based research is conducted.

The founder is aware that his own background as a PhD student at DTU and the fact that the core research of the company was conducted there is an approval of very high value to the company, and he regrets that cultural and formal incompatibility of the two spheres; academia and industry, makes the collaboration difficult. Generally he is very positive about future possibilities of research and development collaboration projects, a collaboration that will however only be possible if some of the actual conditions at the universities are changed. He values presence of industry

representatives at the university departments and practical training of engineers as essential to further collaboration. At the moment Company 4 is keeping in contact with academia by receiving students from DTU as trainees for shorter periods.

Due to closeness of launching the final product, the present collaboration partners are found in the healthcare sector. The final product is expected to reach the market in approximately two years, and in order to ensure that the unique sensor technology is applied to the key diagnostic challenges of healthcare; development at Company 4 is conducted in close collaboration with opinion leading medical specialists as well as nurses and the patients themselves. Some projects are also carried out in collaboration with the Danish Technological Institute.

A huge work pressure makes it very hard for the founder to find the time to participate in the formal or informal networks existing in the field of medico technology, even though this kind of business is regarded important.

IPR issues

The research has lead to the application of four patents, of which two are granted, and the founder is regarding patenting highly important. The wish to protect the

development of new parts of products or technological solutions is continuously resulting in new patent applications. Furthermore the patent literature is often scanned to make sure that no one is threatening the company’s patents and to get an

understanding of the trends of the medico-tech field.

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