Medical Device Accelerators: Southwestern Style

01 Jun 2006

Device start-ups are legion in some geographies-the areas around Boston and San Francisco or Orange County, CA-and not in some others. For instance, there's been very little company creation in the Southwestern parts of the US. A new device incubator, Avant Ventures LLC, will try to redress that problem in the four-state area that includes Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

Robust company creation in medical devices is the product of a kind of virtuous circle: a strong clinical and technological climate in a given geographic region gives birth to great ideas around which to build a number of companies. Interested venture capitalists come in to fund those ideas, launching myriad start-ups, who in turn, as they grow, nurture and develop the management talent needed to run even more new companies.

But when one or two of these components are missing, the virtuous circle turns vicious. Great ideas may exist in...