Colorado Is Nation's Sixth-Biggest Medtech State

The Colorado medical device industry is as diverse as the state's terrain. Centered, not surprisingly, along the metro corridor of Fort Collins, Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs, these companies range from a Sandoz unit of giant Novartis in Broomfield to Denver's Eldon James, whose BioMed cleanroom facility focuses on the manufacture of products designed for the life sciences, biomedical, pharmaceutical and similar applications.

Another global giant, Covidien PLC, employs about 1850 people at its Gunbarrel, CO, campus, which has roughly doubled in size since 2006. In 2012 it opened a new 63,000-sq-ft research and development center at the Gunbarrel location, which is roughly equidistant from Boulder and Longmont. And a trip to Longmont might find the medtech maven at Operator Interface Technology, which makes copper antimicrobial keyboards. 

CEA Technologies, headquartered in Colorado Springs, designs and manufactures disposable and reusable electromechanical devices used in critical care applications. Vention Medical's Boulder design and development facility supplies various heat-shrink and multilayer tubing, as well as catheter balloons. Morton Bowen Inc., a contract manufacturer, is sited in Broomfield. Value Plastics supplies the world with the plastic fittings from Fort Collins. And there's About Packaging Robotics in Thornton, 10 mi. from Denver, and Particle Measuring Systems in Boulder.

The Colorado Bioscience Association (CBSA) says the state's medtech industry is the sixth-largest in the nation and creates over 27,000 jobs. CBSA partnered with the state government to create the Bioscience Discovery Evaluation Grant Program which awards funding for emerging and early-stage companies and commercialization infrastructure. The program is considered a model of innovative state life-science economic development legislation. In 2011, Businesswire.com credited the grants with having created almost 600 jobs in the state. CBSA also publishes Bioscience Colorado, an annual roundup of the state of the state's biotech industry.

Colorado's leading educational institutions in the medtech space are the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said to be the fastest-growing university in the state, and the University of Colorado at Boulder, which claims the largest research university in Colorado. Colorado State University at Fort Collins is home to the School of Biomedical Engineering, the first of its kind in Colorado. The school says its "crossfunctional program integrates physical, chemical, and mathematical sciences with engineering principles and clinical studies to address society's current and emerging needs in the health fields." It offers a dual-degree program combining a Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering with a second in one of several other engineering specializations, and also offers a regulatory affairs certification program. These schools ensure that Colorado's medtech future will remain bright.