J&J Innovation buys into Deerfield-backed medtech incubator

Johnson & Johnson Innovation is joining a medical device incubator program backed by Deerfield Management while making a strategic investment of its own through J&J’s venture arm.

Launched in September 2018, NXT Biomedical previously announced plans to spend $25 million over five years to support technologies aimed at unmet needs, with Deerfield pledging an additional $250 million to help spin out between five and eight medtech startups from the incubator.

And as a key member of the program going forward, Johnson & Johnson Innovation will have the right to select and “migrate” the most promising NXT projects over to its medical device companies for further development, based out of J&J's Center for Device Innovation at the Texas Medical Center (CDI @ TMC) in Houston.

The center will provide support from early-stage development through commercialization and provide access to preclinical facilities, simulation hardware and TMC’s Clinical Research Institute, according to the company. The terms and amount of J&J’s investment in NXT were not disclosed.

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“Through this strategic partnership with NXT Biomedical and Deerfield, we are creating a novel approach to the external funding of projects at CDI @ TMC," and enhancing the company’s pipeline, said Bruce Rosengard, vice president of medical devices at J&J Innovation.

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Since its launch in November 2017, CDI @ TMC has advanced six projects from the early concept stage to multiple prototypes, J&J Innovation said.

The 26,000-square-foot engineering studio hosts J&J staff along each stage of the product development life cycle. It includes a machine shop, mechanical testing lab, electronics workspace, 3D-printing lab and a virtual reality demonstration area. In addition, TMC’s Innovation Institute also hosts a JLABS outpost, which opened in 2016.