Outsourcing Idea Hand-off
Leading medical products suppliers have become valuable partners to healthcare providers. As the credible source for advanced medical products to healthcare markets, these remarkable companies continue to expand their outsourcing of contract services to leverage the valuable franchise they have created, while minimizing investment. These services range from FDA consulting to new product design and contract manufacturing. It is a powerful value creation model.
Consistent with this extraordinary model, Eureka suggests that it also makes sense to outsource the flow of “out-side-the-box” innovation to the most efficient sources for targeted new product development.
Eureka Medical serves as an effective intermediary for medical supply companies and corporate sponsors to handle the submission, initial screening and presentation of new product ideas from independent inventors to leading medical product suppliers.
This service can solve many of the problems large corporations encounter with accepting new product idea submissions from independent inventors. The primary problem being the potential legal exposure associated with receiving submissions from independent medical inventors. Because of the complications many companies have developed a simple policy to not accept any new invention ideas from independent inventors, thus shutting off a viable source for disruptive innovation. As a trusted intermediary Eureka can bridge that gap and open this window to independent innovation.
Professor Christensen in his recent best seller, The Innovator’s Solution, continues to expand his case that the leading companies with high market share are best suited to deliver sustaining technology and high performance line extensions to the most demanding customers in the market. His study of disruptive growth suggests that the most rapid growth and the highest profits can be sourced from disruptive technology plays. Disruptive Innovations generally start small, serving some of the least demanding customers, under the radar screen, so to speak.
Yet these disruptive inventions end up changing customer behavior fundamentally as simpler solutions offer benefits such as convenience, lower costs and improved outcomes. Use is expanded to market dominance as functionality is fully developed and the inherent value of a simpler solution becomes obvious to all.
Professor Christensen introduces a new concept to his model for thinking about innovation from a fundamentally simple point of view of “walking in the shoes” of people in the space and analyzing the jobs to be done by a new innovation. His model suggests that disruptive plays are generally sourced from people who know the space intimately, but are not constrained by the profitability of existing product lines and services and have fresh perspective. Breakthroughs generally come from the minds of people actively involved in their field of endeavor seeking better options that enable them to perform more effectively, more safely and / or with improved convenience for themselves or the people around them. The subtle benefits are usually only obvious to those who deal with the complexities of performance and human emotions everyday. Bright, inventive, optimistic people are personally driven to come up with better ways to solve the obstacles to higher performance, if given the chance. It is a phenomenon of human nature.
Eureka Medical’s innovation sourcing model has been developed to efficiently find, develop and commercialize both sustaining and disruptive medical device technologies from the most powerful source of innovation in the medical supply industry. Consistent with Professor Christensen’s analysis we find that a straightforward model, with risk synchronized to reward, provides the appropriate incentives to independent inventors to draw on their creative genius and focus their time and energy on medical inventions. We provide a clear channel to commercialization for the inventor and a powerful source of consistent low cost innovation to Medical supply companies. There is an important role for an intermediary to play.
Employing a refined version of the proven proactive model developed by Big Idea Group for consumer products, Eureka is actively seeking innovation and expanding our Inventor Network sourced from the over 5 million practicing medical professionals. Working with sponsoring clients, BIG has commercialized over 50 products from its network of 8,000 motivated independent inventors.
The medical inventions are identified through a unique proactive method of running Invention Roadshows. Eureka takes the evaluation process to convenient locations and times to fit with the busy schedules of medical professionals, life science researchers, and healthcare inventors. Our expert panelists bring broad medical experience from which they evaluate ideas for new medical products and jointly select the most promising for further development and commercialization. Eureka works in cooperation with corporate sponsors, medical supply distributors, and venture players to target specific innovations that uniquely fit the sponsor’s targeted growth markets in medical instruments. We value a win / win / win approach-and are committed to looking after the interest of all stakeholders in the process.
Given the obstacles and inefficiencies in the commercialization process for an independent inventor, we are confident that there are at least ten value creating medical innovations lost for every one that is successfully commercialized. We find the best medical inventions conceived by the medical profession and bring them to the medical supply markets to create value for sponsoring companies, Eureka and our medical inventors -and most importantly to enhance life. Sponsoring companies are able to deliver a consistent flow of innovative new products to target markets, expand market share and solidify their image as a leader in providing medical solutions.
Contact our business development team to learn more about our unique Innovation Sourcing Services: BusDev@EurekaMed.com.