Healing Inventions

Surprising ways companies are improving health care.

April 2009

Healing Inventions

Despite a rough and tumble 2008, Minnesota’s medical device manufacturers are holding their own and launching new products. Minnesota led the Midwest in financings for health care start-ups according to BioEnterprise, a bioscience incubator in Cleveland. Those companies attracted $106.4 million during the first half of 2008, out of the $318.9 million in 2008 venture capital to the state’s companies.

The University of Minnesota’s new Medical Devices Center promises to bring new devices to market. Opening in June last year, the center is part of the Institute for Engineering in Medicine in collaboration with the Institute of Technology and the medical school. Researchers can design and test device prototypes with state-of-the-art equipment and software.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) awarded a $1.25 million grant to Willmar to help build a bioscience facility at MinnWest Technology Campus, a high-tech business incubator. Businesses that choose to locate there will also get a tax break as part of the job opportunity building zone program. “The bioscience center will contain a research lab that the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system will use to assist local bioscience business,” says DEED Commissioner Dan McElroy.