Lone Star Rises in the Medical Device Industry

California, Minnesota and Massachusetts often come to mind when one thinks of medical device innovation hubs. But Texas is proving itself to be one of the major up-and-comers in the area.

Many of the biggest medtech players, including more than a dozen Fortune 500 medtech companies, have manufacturing facilities or significant operations in the state. These include Abbott Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, GE, Stryker, Cardinal Health, St. Jude Medical, Becton Dickinson, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Agilent Technologies. According to state officials, in 2012 approximately 800 firms employed more than 15,200 workers in the medical technology sector. As a result, Texas is counted as one of the top 10 states in the nation in numbers of medical device workers.

Houston has long been a center of cardiology and cardiovascular research. The Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, the Baylor College of Medicine, and the Texas Heart Institute are all in Houston. So is the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as are such companies as Cyberonics, which develops neuromodulation implantables, and Nanospectra Biosciences, which is looking into particle-based thermal ablation of solid tumors.

NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center ensures that a vibrant aerospace medicine community also thrives in Houston.

Governor Rick Perry's 2005 creation of the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF) dealt the state itself a hand in the medtech game. While not solely interested in medical technology, in the past year alone TETF has announced assistance to five medtech startups as well as the creation of an academic Center for Cell and Organ Biotechnology, a collaboration between the Texas Heart Institute and Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.

According to Perry's website, "A 17-member advisory committee of high-tech leaders, entrepreneurs and research experts reviews potential projects and recommends funding allocations. ... To date, the TETF has allocated more than $203 million in funds to 142 early-stage companies, and over $216 million in grant matching and research ... funds to Texas universities."

TETF's 2013 crop of medtech innovators includes:

Notice how three of these five awardees were based in Austin, versus Houston, which illustrates how Texas' capital city has turned itself into an innovation hub.

Companies such as e-MDs, a leading player in the electronic health records space, got off the ground in Austin. And Austin is home to the Texas Healthcare & Bioscience Institute, whose members include a number of big medtech names, as well as the Texas Medical Device Alliance, a trade association "to help medical device companies become and remain successful in Texas."

National Instruments (NI) also calls Austin home. NI's Medical Devices division helps companies design, test and validate their medical devices.

One Texas company, Dallas-based Texas Instruments, manufactures a line of products from blood pressure cuffs to CT machines. TI's HealthTech division is, according to the company, "the world's largest producer of analog and embedded processors and the single most experienced source for healthcare components."

The 2012 Texas Medical Devices Industry Report lists major clusters of medtech activity in the state. These include Austin for orthopedics and diagnostics, Houston for cardiology and cardiovascular devices, and Dallas/Ft. Worth for wound care and eye care products manufacturing.

And San Antonio is gaining a reputation as an up-and-coming biotech hub. BioMed SA is a nonprofit supported in part by the City of San Antonio to  foster and accelerate the growth of the healthcare and bioscience sector in the city.

Medtech is just about everywhere in Texas. For example, Angleton, a small town about 30 miles south of Houston, not only boasts a Merit Medical Systems catheter R&D and manufacturing operation, but the town is also home to Surgicut sharps.