Tag Archive for: pediatric device innovation

Alliance for Pediatric Device Innovation consortium members

Children’s National awarded nearly $7.5 million by FDA to lead pediatric device innovation consortium

Alliance for Pediatric Device Innovation consortium membersChildren’s National Hospital was awarded nearly $7.5 million in a five-year grant to continue its leadership of an FDA-funded pediatric device consortium. Building upon a decade of previous consortium leadership, the new consortium is Alliance for Pediatric Device Innovation (APDI) and features a new and expanded roster of partners that reflects its added focus on providing pediatric innovators with expert support on evidence generation, including the use of real-world evidence (RWE), for pediatric device development.

Collaborating for success

With the goal of helping more pediatric medical devices complete the journey to commercialization, APDI is led by Children’s National, with Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., M.B.A., vice president and chief innovation officer, serving as program director and principal investigator, and Julia Finkel, M.D., pediatric anesthesiologist and director of Pain Medicine Research and Development in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, serving as principal investigator.

Consortium members include Johns Hopkins University, CIMIT at Mass General Brigham, Tufts Medical Center, Medstar Health Research Institute and MedTech Color. Publicly traded OrthoPediatrics Corp., which exclusively focuses on advancing pediatric orthopedics, is serving as APDI’s strategic advisor and role model for device innovators whose primary focus is children.

Why we’re excited

Consortium initiatives got underway quickly with the announcement of a special MedTech Color edition of the “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!”competition that focuses on African American and Hispanic innovators. Interested innovators can find details and apply at MedTech Color Pitch Competition. The competition was announced at the recent MedTech Color networking breakfast on Oct. 10,2023 at The MedTech Conference powered by AdvaMed.

“We all benefit from greater equity and inclusion among pediatric MedTech founders, decision-makers, investigators and developers in more effectively addressing the needs of the entire pediatric population,” said Eskandanian. “We need the expertise and insights of innovators from diverse backgrounds, and we want to provide these talented individuals with more opportunities to present their work and share their perspectives on pediatric device development.”

Additional details

APDI is one of five FDA-funded consortia created to provide a platform of services, expertise and funding to help pediatric innovators bring medical devices to the market that specifically address the needs of children.

 

pediatric cardiac and vascular MRI coil

Overcoming real and perceived barriers to pediatric device innovation

pediatric cardiac and vascular MRI coil

A working group of innovators, engineers and clinicians from Children’s National Hospital and other institutions came together to address the real and perceived barriers to the creation of pediatric devices, such as this pediatric cardiac and vascular MRI coil developed by Inkspace Imaging.

A working group of innovators, engineers and clinicians from Children’s National Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Orange County and other institutions came together to address the real and perceived barriers to pediatric device innovation through opportunities that may change the return-on-investment in this market and improve health outcomes.

The new report, published in the Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine, mentions barriers that impede the advancement of pediatric devices, including excessive limitations for testing and validation, lack of incentives, inadequate research models and inconsistent pediatric-related knowledge among companies, regulatory experts, ethic review panels and government reviewers.

To remove the real and perceived barriers fostering excessive limitations, the researchers suggest reducing the perceived risk by establishing guidelines that standardize the review process and ethical research models, incentivizing small companies to participate in pediatric device innovation.

To increase incentives, the researchers call for the development of pediatric versions of adult devices with or without enforcement of regulations, develop incentives for small, medium and large-size companies, extend patent protection and more.

Since science corroborates the device’s effectiveness and safety, tailored pediatric research models are needed to help advance pediatric device innovation. While randomized trials in well-defined cohorts are commonly used in the scientific quest, they do not reflect the clinical practice in the pediatric devices field.

“Overcoming this barrier will require greater opportunity for creativity in the design of clinical trials, including delayed entry, intent-to-treat analysis, personalized outcome measures, and post-hoc subgroup analysis,” said Terence et al. “Effective research for pediatric device innovation will require greater ability to rely on ‘real-world’ data from post-market use of the proposed device or similar devices.”

On the education side, stakeholders, such as device sponsors and researchers, must receive an improved education on pediatric devices, according to the authors. Pediatricians should also be added to the regulatory review panels and advisory boards, so decision-makers can receive the pediatric perspective and fold it into their considerations.

“The consensus outcome of this meeting is that there are multiple opportunities, and a flexible combination of new programs and regulatory changes can be created to benefit the multiple stakeholders in pediatric device development,” said Terence et al. “An essential component will be building a cadre of experts with the development, regulatory, and clinical expertise to support all innovators.”

Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., M.B.A., P.M.P., vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National Hospital adds that supporting and expanding pediatric innovation is a key focus of the new Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus, the first-of-its-kind focused on pediatric health care innovation, with the first phase currently open on the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center campus in Washington, D.C. With its proximity to federal research institutions and agencies, universities, academic research centers, the campus provides a rich ecosystem of public and private partners which will help bolster pediatric innovation and commercialization.

Authors from Children’s Hospital Orange County include Terence Sanger, M.D., Nadine Afari, M.S., Anthony Chang, M.D., William Feaster, M.D., Sharief Taraman, M.D., Debra Beauregard, Brent Dethlefs, Tiffani Ghere, R.D., C.S.P., Mustafa Kabeer, M.D., and George Tolomiczenko.

baby with tubes

BPA analogues may be less likely to disrupt heart rhythm

Some chemical alternatives to plastic bisphenol-a (BPA), which is still commonly used in medical settings such as operating rooms and intensive care units, may be less disruptive to heart electrical function than BPA.

A poster at the AHA Scientific Sessions suggests bisphenol-s (BPS) and bisphenol-f (BPF) may have less impact on heart function than bisphenol-a (BPA).

Some chemical alternatives to plastic bisphenol-a (BPA), which is still commonly used in medical settings such as operating rooms and intensive care units, may be less disruptive to heart electrical function than BPA, according to a pre-clinical study that explored how the structural analogues bisphenol-s (BPS) and bisphenol-f (BPF) interact with the chemical and electrical functions of heart cells.

The findings suggest that in terms of toxicity for heart function, these chemicals that are similar in structure to BPA may actually be safer for medically fragile heart cells, such as those in children with congenital heart disease. Previous research has found a high likelihood that BPA exposure may impact the heart’s electrical conductivity and disrupt heart rhythm, and patients are often exposed to the plastic via clinical equipment found in intensive care and in the operating room.

“There are still many questions that need to be answered about the safety and efficacy of using chemicals that look and act like BPA in medical settings, especially in terms of their potential contribution to endocrine disruption,” says Nikki Gillum Posnack, Ph.D., the poster’s senior author and a principal investigator in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Hospital. “What we can say is that, in this initial pre-clinical investigation, it appears that these structural analogues have less of an impact on the electrical activity within the heart and therefore, may be less likely to contribute to dysrhythmias.”

Future studies will seek to quantify the risk that these alternative chemicals pose in vulnerable populations, including pediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery patients. Since pediatric patients’ hearts are still growing and developing, the interactions may be different than what was seen in this pilot study.

Learn more the impacts of exposure to plastics such as bisphenol-A and plasticizers such as DEHP and MEHP that are commonly used in medical devices:

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Bisphenol-a Analogues May Be Safer Alternatives For Plastic Medical Products
Rafael Jaimes, Damon McCullough, Luther M Swift, Marissa Reilly, Morgan Burke, Jiansong Sheng, Javier Saiz, Nikki G Posnack
Poster Presentation by senior author Nikki G Posnack
CH.APS.01 – Translational Research in Congenital Heart Disease
AHA Scientific Sessions
November 16, 2019
1:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

NCC-PDI Pitch Winners

NCC-PDI announces medical device pitch winners

NCC-PDI Pitch Winners

Five pediatric medical device innovators each captured $50K in funding and access to a new pediatric device accelerator program in a competition hosted April 30, 2019 by National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation that focused on orthopedic and spine devices. Clockwise from front left: Kolaleh Eskandanian, Children’s National Health System; Cristian Atria, nView Medical; John Barrett, Auctus Surgical Inc.; Paul Mraz, ApiFix; Dan Sands, AMB Surgical II; Anuradha Dayal, BabySteps, Children’s National Health System; Paul Grand, MedTech Innovator; (center) Bill Bentley, Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices, University of Maryland.

The National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI) announced five winners of its “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!” competition held on April 30 at the University of Maryland. Each winner receives $50,000 in grant funding and gains access to the consortium’s first-of-its-kind “Pediatric Device Innovator Accelerator Program” led by MedTech Innovator.

NCC-PDI, one of five FDA Pediatric Device Consortia grant programs that support the development and commercialization of pediatric medical devices, is led by the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Health System and the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. The consortium recently added new accelerators BioHealth Innovation and MedTech Innovator and design firm partner, Smithwise.

A panel of 32 expert judges from business, healthcare, regulatory and legal sectors selected the winners based on the clinical significance and commercial feasibility of their medical devices for children. The competition focused solely on advancing care in the pediatric orthopedics and spine sector which the FDA identified as an emerging underserved specialty lacking innovation.

The competition winners are:

  • AMB Surgical, LLC, Dayton, Ohio – FLYTE, a device designed to reduce invasive and repetitive surgery in children and teens with orthopedic illnesses such as scoliosis and limb abnormalities
  • Auctus Surgical, Inc., San Francisco, Calif. – Auctus Surgical Dynamic Spinal Tethering System, a mechanism used to correct the scoliotic spine in pediatric patients through a tethering procedure
  • ApiFix Ltd, Boston, Mass. – ApiFix’s Minimally Invasive Deformity Correction (MID-C) System, a posterior dynamic deformity correction system for surgical treatment to provide permanent spinal curve correction while retaining flexibility
  • Children’s National Health System, Washington, D.C.– Babysteps platform to improve initial assessment of clubfoot deformity and predict the magnitude of correction
  • nView Medical, Salt Lake City, Utah – Surgical scanner using AI-based image creation to provide instant 3D imaging during surgery to improve imagery speed and accuracy

“All finalists are winners and we believe that, with NCC-PDI’s support, some of the awarded devices will be available to orthopedic and spine clinicians in the near future. That is vitally important since innovation has been stagnant in this area,” says Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., MBA, PMP, vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National and principal investigator of NCC-PDI. “This competition aims to increase the profile of companies by exposing them to a panel of industry leaders who may become future investors or strategic partners.”

Through the inaugural NCC-PDI “Pediatric Device Innovator Accelerator Program,” MedTech Innovator is providing winners with virtual in-depth, customized mentorship from some of the industry’s leading executives and investors. MedTech Innovator has a proven track record of identifying early-stage medical device companies with the key characteristics required for commercial success and accelerating their growth through its vast ecosystem of resources.

“As a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, I am encouraged by the innovations presented at this competition,” says Matthew Oetgen, M.D., division chief of Orthopaedic Surgery and Sports Medicine at Children’s National, who served on the judging panel. “We need more devices that compensate for the smaller size of children compared to adults and that can adapt as children’s bones continue to grow and develop. The finalists who competed fully embraced that challenge.”

This was NCC-PDI’s eighth competition in six years and a ninth competition is planned for fall 2019 that focuses on NICU. Including this recent round of winners, the consortium has supported 94 pediatric medical devices and helped five companies receive FDA or CE mark regulatory clearance.

To learn more about the winners and the fall 2019 pitch competition, visit the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation website.