What’s Inside This Report

The report discussed seven key reasons why licensing is one of the best go-to-market strategies for the med-tech industry – especially for startups. Here are a few summary highlights from the report:

• High Risk and Development Costs: Many devices are technically complex, requiring many different technologies often protected by hundreds of patents covering the structure, function and/or methods of using the device.
• Intense Competition from Big Players: Medical technology is an intensively competitive industry driven by the large number and variety of devices and designs with lots of variations in improvements.
• Shortening Technology Lifespan: The medical devices industry is becoming a high-volume, consumer electronics market. This, in turn, is shortening the commercial lifespan for med device technology to 18-24 months, much shorter than the patent lifespan of 20 years.
• Why Big Players Want to License Your IP: Innovation is moving too quickly in the medical technology industry, and many of the largest companies are moving out of the R&D part of the business.
• Licensing and Med Tech Value: The closer your medical device technology is to market-ready, the more value it has in terms of licensing.
• Negotiating the Licensing Deal: The best licensing agreements are performance-based. That means making sure you and your licensing partner agree on key milestones, such as development timelines, marketing dates, and royalty payment deadlines.

Forming strategic licensing partnerships is a go-to-market strategy for your med-tech startup. The fast-changing health care marketplace and the rapid pace of new devices entering the market is shortening the lifespan of med device technology. And that means you must get your med device into the market sooner than later. By partnering with bigger companies through licensing, your device technology gets into the market faster than trying to go it alone against these big med-devices, high-tech, and consumer electronics competitors.