Students from the University of Minnesota will soon have the opportunity to assess Chinese medical technologies for their market potential. Under the agreement, the School of Medical Instrument and Food Engineering at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology will send projects for the students to evaluate. In addition, the schools have agreed to explore the possibility of a joint training program that would allow Chinese professionals to learn about the U.S. regulatory system, MedCity News reports.
The Medical Industry Leadership Institute was established by the U of M and the Carlson School of Management back in 2005. And it will be its Medical Industry Valuation Laboratory will be judging technologies from the Chinese school. The Valuation Lab was created because Carlson's Stephen Parente and Randy Nelson, CEO of Evergreen Medical Technologies, thought many great technologies languished and were not being commercialized fast enough. The lab allows groups of students to judge and provide a detailed report on the promise of a technology, according to MedCity News.
Parente says news of the lab has spread, and companies from other states have come for help on reviewing technologies. He adds that the course allowing the review is also getting noticed by local corporations. "Historically, Medtronic hired maybe one or two of our students for those advanced management tracks, but they would go to Harvard, Wharton, Northwestern," he said, as quoted by MedCity News. "They have now put us on the list and that was our goal."
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