Teaching undergraduates medical technology innovation and business planning

This paper describes the curriculum and approach used to introduce undergraduate biomedical engineering students to the process of medical technology innovation and business planning. Acknowledging that undergraduates may lack experience in relation to many of the issues that need to be dealt with in relation to the design, development and commercialisation of new technology, the author has progressively used the Internet as a growing window to the world to enable students to build a knowledge base beyond their own experience. Like real first time innovators the students are expected to acquire the knowledge required to firstly generate new design concepts, then select the most medically and commercially interesting design concept, establish IP management requirements, look at costs associated with R&D, product development and commercialisation, identify regulatory requirements, assess competition, and then analyse cost and profit. The classroom teaching is based on recent Australian technology case studies and the innovation focus is concentrated in a prescribed area of medical technology. The desired outcome is a knowledge of the issues that either assist or inhibit the development of new medical technology and insights into the innovation process. Each undergraduate student develops a business plan for the development of a new medical device.