In addition to all the work MINT does preparing a project to be licensed, we also look to support the development of the product once it is in the hands of a commercial partner. MINT engineers, clinicians and business advisors develop a deep understanding of the project and their expertise and knowledge can bring huge benefits to the entrepreneurs and investors leading commercialization.
MINT offers an easy solution to entrepreneurs and investors who license our technologies and don’t want to lose any time in the development process. While the company is being established MINT can drive the day-to-day operations, project managing external engineering companies, regulatory advisors and other consultants.
One example of a successful research alliance is our work with Lumendi. In 2015 Lumendi licensed our Endolumenal Surgical Platform (ESP), now known as Dilumen, and we also entered into a two-year research alliance.
Lumendi is a start-up company and in the first year they relied heavily on MINT to lead the development work as they recruited their team. MINT played a central role managing the external engineering companies working on the technology and continued to lead on regulatory and intellectual property strategy. MINT also helped to establish the Clinical Advisory Board and conducted extensive testing of device prototypes in our lab.
In the second year Lumendi began to build their team and began to take on more responsibilities from MINT. At MINT we continued to undertake many of the same activities from the first year and also facilitated the performance of validation and verification testing and supported submission to the FDA resulting in the successful clearance of the Dilumen device.
Now in our third year, our support of the company has shifted and while we are still contributing to engineering activities, particularly in relation to the development of the second generation Dilumen C2 and the associated surgical tools, we are no longer managing the engineering process.
Our major area of activity now focuses on the clinical adoption of the technology as our team has been training clinicians and developing resources to highlight how the technology can be used. We have also facilitated the first-in-man trial of Dilumen which took place at Weill Cornell Medical Center and we are now supporting an additional study looking at the therapeutic benefits of using Dilumen.
