Ten years ago, when Josh Makower, MD, started an incubator, ExploraMed Inc., it was arguably the device industry's first. Makower proposed a different model for device company creation: to begin without a clear idea of the business, but, backed by some money and a vision of the clinical need, to search for the right technology to address that need. Now, a year after selling one of the incubator's start-ups, TransVascular, to Medtronic, Makower has resurrected ExploraMed, and he's just funded his first company. While the model remains largely the same, subtle differences between ExploraMed I and ExploraMed II highlight how much the medical device start-up world has changed over the past decade.
Ten years ago, Josh Makower, MD, started an incubator,
ExploraMed Inc. , arguably the device
industry's first, at a time when few people in the medical device
industry felt there was any need for incubators. After all, device
company creation was roaring ahead, backed by an eager venture
capital community just discovering medical technology and a public
investor market that was eagerly embracing the promise implicit in
the products that device companies offered.
Over the next several years, however, ExploraMed and the device start-up community went in somewhat separate directions. While the incubator was busy successfully launching two companies, the device industry entered...
