Extending a Medical Device Platform

Client: A small medical device company positioning themselves for acquisition

Situation: The client produces products that are widely used to care for the respiratory needs of patients in a variety of therapeutic and critical care applications. Their products include positive expiratory pressure therapy products used in cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma or Cystic Fibrosis patients; and devices used to help patients inspire nebulized drugs. The company had established a strong niche position in respiratory health with their core product platform and it was time to prepare the company for harvesting.

Strategy: To strengthen their market position and company value proposition, they needed to develop and begin implementing their platform or product line plan, which called for sequential introduction of next generation positive expiratory pressure therapy.

Tactics: Voice of the customer and ethnographic research followed by an Innovare Greenhouse concept development workshop was chosen as the right approach to help their development team define what sequence of product innovations should be developed based on customer needs. The research would help them gain insight about the context of product use in the clinical and home environment and those insights would fuel the development of a series of added features and benefits for subsequent generations of the core product line. Nurse practitioners were selected as the primary subject since they were having constant interaction with respiratory patients as they used the core product.

Results: The development team created a shared understanding of what the patients and nurse practitioners experienced when using their devices. That allowed them to see the problems and imagine a wide range of opportunities for the device as their business moved forward. Their product line plan was developed and identified specific new product introductions over their planning horizon. Their first next generation product solved issues that limited at home use by the patients (assembly and cleaning). That innovation expanded the application levels of the product line and enhanced the value of the business. The client was recently acquired by a large medical device corporation.

Return to the Case Study List