CONTRIBUTORS

MX has always been a cross-platform venture of sorts, with a lot of additional content available exclusively by way of the publication's Web site. But there's never been an issue of MX quite like the one you hold in your hands, for which the amount of content available online is nearly equal to the amount in print.

One reason for all this extra online content is the complexity of this issue's articles, which involve contributed materials from a wide range of organizations. For "Achievements in Medtech Marketing", MX's annual coverage of the International Awards of Excellence (In-Awe) program, for instance, a large number of agencies submitted descriptions and graphics illustrating their winning campaigns. But to access most of these descriptions, readers will have to visit the expanded version of the article online.

Business Planning & Technology Development

A good way to gauge the level of innovation in medical technology that is characteristic of an identifiable region of the country is to examine and analyze patent data, which is what the Patent Board, a patent advisory firm, has done.

As Paris Kucharski and Scott Oldach show in their article "Location, Location--Innovation", a region need not be especially prolific of either inventors or patents to be a leader ac­cording to a metric reflecting patent influence. Kucharski is an advisory services associate with the Patent Board (Chicago), and Oldach is its president. The auth­ors can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected], respectively.

Also in this issue, MX editorial advisory board member Charles F. D'Agostino, founder and executive director of the Louisiana Business and Technology Center at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, LA), looks at the traits of university research parks that make them a breeding ground for medical technology ventures.

D'Agostino's article, "The Academic Connection", reminds us that commercializing a technology involves much more than merely filing a patent. And just to clinch that point, many institutions have provided de­scriptions of their operations and some of the medtech ventures they support. To visit the full range of contributed descriptions, log on to the expanded version of this article via the MX Web site at www. devicelink.com/mx. D'Agostino can be reached at 225/578-7555 or via e-mail at [email protected].

Some medical device companies that develop a premium-priced therapeutic product and then market it as soon as they receive FDA approval to do so fall into a trap of their own making.

This is the case Mark Speers and Susan A. Posner make in their article "Taking the High Road". Patience, say the authors, and the will­ingness to bet extra early investment against the promise of a greater market footprint can help maximize the de­vice's price potential.

Speers is a managing director and partner and Posner is a vice president at Health Advances LLC (Weston, MA), a strategic consulting firm serving the medtech industry. They can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected], respectively, or by telephone at 781/647-3435.

Advertising, Distribution, & Sales

Some medical technology companies prefer to use a sales staff of their own to sell directly. Others find advantage in letting independent sales representatives or distributors do the selling. In his article, "Sales Force Strategies for a Competitive Advantage", John C. Zimmer explains the advantages and disadvantages of each option.

Zimmer is the president of Global Medical Alliance LLC (Middleton, WI), a consulting firm that aligns medical device manufacturers with independent sales reps. Zimmer can be reached at 608/836-3596 or via e-mail at [email protected].

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