Clinical areas in which we have strong expertise and knowledge are cardiology, wound care, ostomy care, ophthalmology, diabetes care, respiratory/pulmonary, orthopaedics, minimally invasive surgery, urology, gastro-intestinal and obstetrics and gynaecology.

Breakthrough products

We have created next generation medical products which fundamentally change the basis of competition:

• for St Jude Medical we developed the Housecall Plus™ monitoring system for implanted cardioverter defibrillators (ICD). This product was named an 'Innovation Honoree in Assistive Technologies' at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show
• for CHF Solutions we developed an ultra-filtration system for congestive heart failure patients, winning the US Medical Design Excellence Award in 2004

Understanding customer needs

Novel product concepts call for deep customer understanding and first class technological invention:

• we helped a major medical device company understand the un-met stakeholder needs within the area of interventional cardiology. Observational research in US hospitals identified and mapped un-met needs leading to over 100 innovations, with several concepts going forward to development
• in the diabetes care market, we worked with a major player to develop next generation product concepts for diabetics and their health care practitioners

Improved business strategies

We have extensive experience working with clients on improved business strategies. Recent assignments include an appraisal of disruptive technologies, the improvement of R+D performance and the development of profitable new business areas based on core competencies:

• we helped a global medical company identify and quantify potentially disruptive threats to its minimally invasive surgery business. Recommendations were developed that enabled our client to plan future defensive and offensive strategies.
• we worked with a coating technology company to assess business opportunities in the medical device area. Having identified a small number of medical device markets that had high-value and growing coating requirements, we developed an outline business plan to address these targeted opportunities.