MATMED: Innovative materials in medical technology
Project to promote innovation in the medical sector
Many material innovations with potential in the field of regenerative medicine and medical devices - such as 3D printing, nanocoatings and biodegradable polymers - are not or only slowly being taken up by the market and are therefore not benefiting the ageing population in the North-West Europe (NWE) region. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in these sectors are unable to maximize their competitiveness as they face many challenges.
Hurdles for these cross-regional, interdisciplinary innovations are, for example:
- lengthy, slow and expensive market access for medical material innovations
- Lack of networking of SMEs and other stakeholders with the medical sector
- Lack of availability or familiarity with test infrastructures
- lengthy investment return cycles
- Difficulties in raising venture capital
- Complex, changing EU regulatory framework for medical devices
The project
MATMED (MATerials in MEDizin) meets these challenges. It is based on a transnational, web-based, open innovation platform. This brings SMEs together with researchers, companies, private investors and regulatory players in an interdisciplinary way beyond their own regional networks. The aim is to support SMEs in developing innovations with new materials together with transnational partners and to drive these forward to market maturity.
MATMED offers SMEs a specific accelerator program to give innovative solutions a strong push towards market entry with the help of financial support.
MATMED offers matchmaking events with venture capital companies to initiate project financing in the early stages.
MATMED organizes practice-oriented workshops on the topic of "Regulatory framework conditions for the approval of medical devices", such as the new EU Medical Device Regulation.
MATMED has 3 million euros at its disposal, of which the EU is contributing around 1.8 million euros in funding. The project runs until April 2022.
The partner
MATMED comprises the NWE (North West Europe) regions of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Flanders (Belgium), Limburg, Overijssel and Gelderland (Netherlands) and Greater Manchester (United Kingdom) with the project partners:
- GM Business Support Ltd/ Lead partner organization (GB)
- Center for NanoTechnology (CeNTech) GmbH (D)
- East Netherlands Development Agency Oost NL NV - Oost NL (NL)
- Ghent University (B)
- MedLife e.V. (D)
- The University of Manchester (GB)
- Aachen-Maastricht Institute for Biobased Materials (Maastricht University) (NL)
MedLife e.V. is carrying out this interesting project in cooperation with Forschungszentrum Jülich.
If you are interested, please contact the MedLife e.V. office by phone: 0241/ 47 583-486 or by e-mail: info(at)medlife-ev.de.
This program is financially supported by the INTERREG program:
