The theme for the 5th annual BioMelbourne Network Devices + Diagnostics Lab is Implantable Medical Technology.
Speakers will address innovation in medical devices, with a focus on implantable medical technologies, across the product development life-cycle – from concept to market.
The full day event will feature keynote speakers, panel discussions, case studies and interactive Q&A sessions. The event is also timed to coincide with the Victorian State Government’s Victoria Invitation Program 2017 – which showcases Victoria to business leaders from around the world – creating the opportunity for international delegates to attend sessions and engage with local sector leaders.
Attendees can expect to gain new insights into pathways to market, a greater understanding of product development life-cycle, new knowledge to inform business strategy, new collaborations and partnerships, increased awareness of local business capabilities and new business contacts.
When: Wednesday 15th March 2017, 9.00am to 5.30pm, followed by networking
Where: The Auditorium @ 452 Flinders, Level 1, 452 Flinders St, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000
Price:
$295.00 – Members (HISA and MTAA Members may access this rate by call 03 9667 8181 to register)
$550.00 – Non Members
(Prices include GST)
Cancellation Policy:
Full refund given up to 7 days prior to the event
No refunds within 7 days of the event
To check if your organisation is a member click here
Who should attend: Business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, clinicians, researchers, product developers and industry experts across medical technology, ICT, engineering, design, manufacturing and health innovation.
Download Program Here
Special Guest:
The Hon Philip Dalidakis, Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade
Panelists and Chair People:
Dr Elane Zelcer, Executive Director, BioConsult & Commercialisation Adviser, Accelerating Commercialisation
Prof Sally McArthur, Director Innovation Precinct, Swinburne University of Technology
Dr Ruth Park-Jones, Business Development Manager, University of Melbourne
David Blake, Editor, BioShares
Dr Graeme Wald, Principal, OneVentures Pty Ltd.
Andrew Maxwell, Managing Director, Chatsworth Associates Pty Ltd.
Dr Rob Crombie, Commercialisation Advisor, Accelerating Commercialisation
Penelope Lane, Senior Investment Manager | ICT, Pharmaceuticals & Medical Technologies, Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resource
Dr Ingmar Wahlqvist, Investment Manager, Brandon Capital Partners
Speakers:
Dr Andreas Pfahnl, VP & CTO in Medical Devices, Nortech Systems Inc.
Randall S. Nelson, President, Evergreen Medical Technologies,Inc., Saint Paul, Minnesota
Elpis Barons, CEO – Accelerator Group, Trajan Scientific and Medical
Paul Brennan, CEO, PolyNovo
Kathy Connell, Senior Director New Ventures, ANZ Johnson and Johnson California Innovation Centre
Prof Paulo De Souza, Office of the Chief Executive Science Leader, Micro-Sensing Technology and Systems Cyber-Physical Systems Research Program, DATA61|CSIRO
Dr Dean Robert Freestone, Senior Research Fellow and Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar, The University of Melbourne
Amos Meltzer, COO, SmartStent Pty Ltd
Toby McSweeney, General Manager – Class III BioMedical, Hydrix
Dr John Parker, Founder and CEO, Saluda Medical
Dr Heather St John, Chief Operating Officer, Monash Institute of Medical Engineering (MIME)
Sponsored by:
Speaker Biographies:
Professor Arthur Erdman
Arthur G. Erdman, P.E., is the Richard C. Jordan Professor and a Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, specializing in mechanical design, bioengineering and product design. In July 2007 he was selected as the Director of the Medical Devices Center at the U of M. He received his BS degree at Rutgers University, his MS and Ph.D. at RPI. Dr. Erdman has
published over 325 technical papers, 3 books, holds over 30 patents, and shares with his former students 9 Best Paper Awards at international conferences.
Dr. Erdman currently has a number of ongoing projects of which many are related to biomedical engineering and medical device design. He led the effort to create LINCAGES, a mechanism software design package that has been use worldwide. Dr. Erdman has had research collaborations with faculty in Ophthalmology, Neuroscience, Epidemiology, Orthopedics, Surgery, Dentistry, Otolaryngology and Sport Biomechanics. He has consulted at over 50 companies in mechanical and product design, including Xerox, 3M, Andersen Windows, Proctor and Gamble, HP, Rollerblade, Sulzer Medica and Yamaha.
He has received a number of awards including ASME Machine Design Award and the ASME Outstanding Design Educator Award. Erdman is a Fellow of ASME and a Founding Fellow of AIMBE. He has been the Chair of ten Design of Medical Devices Conferences which are held next to the University of Minnesota each April.
Randall S. Nelson, President, Evergreen Medical Technologies,Inc., Saint Paul, Minnesota
Randall Nelson is CEO and Founder of Evergreen Medical Technologies, Inc., a contract development and manufacturing company for medical devices located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Mr. Nelson is also President of PhysioTest, an independent test lab providing contract testing services for medical devices.
Mr. Nelson has been responsible for the development of medical devices for over 35 years at both emerging and larger medical device companies. Mr. Nelson has held management positions at St. Jude Medical Inc., Boston Scientific Corporation, Angeion Corporation; and Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. (now part of Boston Scientific Corp.)
Mr. Nelson has 15 issued patents in the field of medical devices. He has a Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Minnesota and an Economics degree from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. From 2009-2015, Mr. Nelson was an Adjunct Faculty member of the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, where he taught a graduate level course in the valuation of new medical innovations.
Paul Brennan, CEO, PolyNovo
Mr Brennan was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PolyNovo Ltd on 13 February 2015. Mr Brennan has extensive knowledge, exposure and understanding of the health system through his clinical background and commercial exposure with various multinational companies. He has co-ordinated the marketing, global strategy development, new product development and regulatory processes for the Asia-Pacific region for industry-leading organisations in relation to medical products and devices. Mr Brennan has an intimate knowledge of the manufacturing and production processes. Previously he was Marketing Director Australia and New Zealand and Sales Director New Zealand for Smith & Nephew Healthcare from 2008 to his commencement with PolyNovo in February 2015. Mr Brennan holds a MBA from Swinburne University, a Bachelor of Science (Nursing) from the University of New England in NSW, Certificate in Midwifery Central Coast Area Health Service NSW, and General Nursing certificate from St Vincent’s Hospital Darlinghurst NSW.
Elpis Barons, CEO – Accelerator Group, Trajan Scientific and Medical
As Director of BMC, she provides clinical research consulting services to international medical technology organizations, device manufacturers and suppliers.
As CEO of Trajan’s Accelerator Group, she leads the identification of start-ups aligned with Trajan’s vision, and integrating them into the organization to provide long-term development support.
Ms Barons has also overseen human clinical trials and studies for medical device start-ups, and undertaken cardiovascular research at the Baker Medical Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia, and Institute of Atherosclerosis Research, University of Siena, Italy which contributes to her breadth of expertise in both commercial and clinical settings.
Kathy Connell, Senior Director New Ventures, ANZ Johnson and Johnson California Innovation Centre
Kathy Connell is responsible for implementing Johnson and Johnson Innovation’s external partnerships and growth strategy across Australia and NZ. As the technology scout for the pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer health businesses, Kathy is passionate about encouraging and building global collaborations to deliver new and disruptive healthcare solutions for people everywhere. Kathy’s remit is to identify, review and establish early stage collaborative research and licensing opportunities to support Johnson & Johnson’s global R&D pipelines. She is also responsible for engaging with university, government, venture capital and industry stakeholders to identify novels ways of engaging with the innovation communities to help drive and build bio-economies across Australia and NZ to develop sustainable and long term sources of healthcare innovations.
Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Kathy was the head of Innovation and Investment for Janssen Australia and NZ, held business development roles at Sanofi to drive in-licensing, out-licensing and acquisition activities for the ANZ and Asia Pacific businesses across the pharmaceutical and consumer health sectors and was the Global VP of Business Development for an Australian biotech company. Kathy has a clinical, commercial and legal background with more than 25 years cross-sector experience including in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academia and hospital industries.
Prof Paulo De Souza, Office of the Chief Executive Science Leader, Micro-Sensing Technology and Systems Cyber-Physical Systems Research Program, DATA61|CSIRO
Professor de Souza is a Physicist with PhD in Natural Sciences from Uni-Mainz, Germany. He has 20+ years of international experience in industrial research and consultancy. He is recognised for his work in miniaturised sensor development in fields including space exploration, environmental sciences, animal behaviour monitoring, and industrial process control. Paulo has 200+ peer-reviewed publications, patents and books. He is co-author of a series of papers identified as the Breakthrough of the Year 2004 by the prestigious journal Science. He is an Officer of the Chief Executive Science Leader at CSIRO | Data61, and is leading CSIRO’s research efforts in the field of micro-sensing technologies, including implantable devices. Paulo is driven by long-term challenges and the endurance required to meet them. He has been working for over 13 years with NASA’s Opportunity rover, which has covered over a Marathon on Mars. Like Opportunity, he became an ultra-marathoner himself.
Dr Dean Robert Freestone, Senior Research Fellow and Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar, The University of Melbourne
Dr Freestone’s research is focused on reverse engineering the human brain. He is developing methods to create a mathematical blueprint of the brain, so engineering methods can be used to treat neurological disorders. His research findings are about to be trialled in a brain implant designed to predict and control epileptic seizures in collaboration with the medical device company Medtronic. He also works closely IBM Australia, where the team is creating specialised computer chips that can interface with the brain and bypass broken neural circuits.
Dr Freestone has a degree in Electronic Engineering from La Trobe University, where he won the Vice-Chancellor's Travelling Scholarship, the Tad Szental Prize for the best engineering final year student and the Hooper Memorial Prize for best final year project. In 2012, Dr Freestone completed his PhD in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department at the University of Melbourne (and The University of Edinburgh on exchange), where he won the John Melvin Memorial Scholarship for the best PhD in Engineering and the University wide Chancellor’s Prize for PhD Excellence. Dr Freestone was the 2014-2015 Victorian Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow, where he worked in the Neural Statistics Lab at Columbia University in New York City, USA. He is now a junior faculty member in the Department of Medicine at St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, since October 2015.
Amos Meltzer, COO, SmartStent Pty Ltd
My core legal expertise is technology commercialization in the life sciences, having acted on a large range of agreements across a large range of technologies. These agreements include in- and out- licenses, R&D collaborations, contract research and contract manufacturing, sale and distribution agreements, assisting companies to ready their intangible assets for an investment and providing IP portfolio advice.
My principal value-add is the ability to integrate into my legal service advice my scientific and patents knowledge as well as my commercial and industry experience. This is enabled from having worked in both law firms and biotechnology companies in a number of roles (in-house counsel, business development, COO and CEO), and having managed in these roles both pre-clinical and clinical development as well as R&D collaborations, manufacturing, sales and/or distribution and licensing relationships.
Mr Toby McSweeney, General Manager - Class III BioMedical, Hydrix
Toby McSweeney is a passionate Medical Device Development Executive committed to improving the lives of recipients with life support and life sustaining devices. With a strong background in Class III medical devices with global leader Cochlear Ltd, Toby held senior management positions where he was able to lead, develop and mentor talented engineers to design and create first of its kind implantable devices.
Inspired by the struggle of his sister in law and her husband with lifelong profound hearing loss, Toby has dedicated his career to pursuing new technologies and developing new implants with a stringent appreciation for regulatory bodies and governing standards. ‘To make a difference’ is his driving force and this resonates in every facet of each project, from the proposal, to guidance given to his teams, to his clients and the board.
Like his love of building high performance race cars, Toby understands the importance of developing world class devices comes from the strength of its foundations – something he lives and breathes in his current role as General Manager Class III at Hydrix Ltd. In this role, Toby has harnessed his passion and focused his skills to successfully architect business, regulatory and development strategies to deliver ground breaking devices worldwide with teams of committed engineers and project managers who are inspired by his mantra.
An honours graduate of the University of Technology Sydney, Toby’s drive and commitment carries through to all facets of his life, as a triathlon coach and Ironman triathlon competitor, and as a father of three young children, Toby is acutely aware of the importance of resilience and commitment as well as great leadership, communication and mentoring.
Andreas Pfahnl, VP & CTO in Medical Devices at Nortech Systems Inc
Andreas Pfahnl, ScD is VP & CTO in Medical Devices at Nortech Systems Inc, which is an international contract product development and manufacturing company with facilities across Minnesota, and in Mexico and China. Nortech Medical Devices has in-house full product development and engineering services, and PCBA, advanced cable, assembly and cleanroom manufacturing. Medical Device customers are ones that outsource R&D and/or manufacturing, and are primarily either early-stage startups or established multinationals.
Andy joined Devicix in 2008, and led that business since 2010. Nortech acquired Devicix in 2015, and that formerly established Nortech Medical Devices. Projects there range from complex electromechanical systems including active implants and home/hospital care systems, to mechanical devices including surgical and minimally invasive ones.
Andy’s expertise spans a broad range of clinical areas including neuromodulation / stimulation, cardiology, mHealth / telemedicine, and orthopedics. His expertise is in developing products and businesses by commercializing advanced technologies to create highly differentiated product platforms, and has done so in a number of industries including the medical device industry. He is himself an entrepreneur and commercialized his own inventions, and often participates in speaking engagements and publications.
He teaches at the University of St. Thomas, and previously held management and engineering leadership positions at Amphenol and Teradyne, and was an adjunct faculty at the University of Massachusetts. He holds doctoral and master's degrees from MIT, and completed his bachelors at Rensselaer with studies at the ETH-Z.
Dr Heather St John, Chief Operating Officer, Monash Institute of Medical Engineering (MIME)
Dr Heather St John is responsible for the management and coordination of MIME’s activities including workshops, seed-funding programs, grant development, industry engagement and establishment of the MIME PhD program.
Heather’s prior experience includes:
• R&D in polymeric coatings and biomaterials for medical devices
• Industry development and commercialisation of medical technologies including establishment of masterfile and 13485 accreditation, FDA engagement, and co-development with major partners.
• Management of multidisciplinary R&D consortia
• Leadership of University-industry engagement and strategic partnerships
• Development of strategic plans, business plans, and major proposals
• IP protection, licensing, spin-outs and capital raising
As a post-doctoral fellow Heather was part of the team that developed the world’s first extended wear contact lens, and later was Director of Aortech Biomaterials during the period of pilot manufacturing through to FDA approval for first human use of its biostable polymer in pacing leads. She was CSIRO’s Division lead for the spin-out of Polynovo Biomaterials, co-developed the business plan for Polyactiva, managed the stem cell bioreactor program in the CRC for Polymers, and developed the strategic plan for the Monash Comprehensive Cancer Consortium. Other co-development applications have included heart valves, artificial cornea, spinal discs, stents and neurostimulation leads. Technologies she has contributed to are now used by millions of people worldwide in life-sustaining devices.
Dr John Parker, Founder and CEO, Saluda Medical
Dr John Parker, Founder and CEO: Dr Parker founded the Implant Systems team at NICTA that developed the closed loop feedback technology. He has over 20 years of experience in medical devices, including 13 years at Cochlear Limited, where he served in the role of Chief Technology Officer / executive member of the board of directors.