Archetype has announced a new ‘Expertise for Equity’ approach to its innovation management services, helping to speed up crucial early-stage development for innovators working on ground-breaking MedTech products.
It will give companies whose product has proven potential the opportunity to access make-or-break support at the earliest stages of innovation – when innovators often have limited capital – in exchange for an equity share in the company.
The Expertise for Equity compensation model will offer the most promising MedTech innovators access to Archetype’s expertise across product innovation, design and engineering, and regulatory compliance.
The approach is central to the ethos of Archetype’s founder and Principal Consultant, Dr Stuart Grant.
He launched Archetype, following a 25-year career at Johnson & Johnson MedTech, in order to focus his expertise on helping innovators navigate every stage of the complex product innovation journey to securing market approval for their medical devices.
A named inventor on multiple medical devices, Dr Grant is acutely aware that many highly promising MedTech companies lack the necessary funds to access specialized support in the earliest stages of product development, which can seriously hamstring their vision.
He said: “Having been at the cutting edge of MedTech innovation management throughout my career, my ambition now is to hold the ladder for other MedTech visionaries, who often find themselves cash-strapped at precisely the time when they would most benefit from the expertise and guidance of specialists like Archetype.
“Through the Expertise for Equity offer, we aim to reduce financial barriers and deliver the expertise essential to accelerating a medical product’s path to market success.”
Archetype Medtech’s first equity partnership agreement has been signed with LumipenPro™ – a US-based company that Archetype has worked with for the past year to help obtain EU MDR (European Medical Device Regulation) market approval for its unique illumination, suction, and smoke evacuation tool, that snaps onto electrocautery pens widely used in aesthetic surgery.
The agreement with LumipenPro™ will see Archetype provide a significant investment in expertise, valued at six-figures, in exchange for an equity share in the company.
The partnership was driven by the recognition that Archetype’s scope of work could be expanded to help develop a next-generation version of the LumipenPro™ device.
Archetype will continue to work alongside LumipenPro™ Inventor and Founder Dr Steven Warnock, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon of 20 years’ standing, and Chief Business Officer, David Hawkes, on the next generation of LumipenPro™.
David Hawkes said: “Having Archetype on board as an equity partner is a game-changer for the future success and expansion of LumipenPro™.
“Archetype has significantly expedited our plans to introduce LumipenPro™ to the European market, and Dr Grant’s deep insight into hidden customer needs has now energized development of the next-generation device.
“We have hugely ambitious plans for the global expansion of LumipenPro™ over the next five years and, with further strategic investors joining us alongside Archetype, we’re confident that this will be achieved.”
Dr Warnock added: “LumipenPro™ has already given aesthetic surgeons in the US an easy-to-use and cost-efficient device which vastly improve challenging surgical procedures.
“I’m excited to be working with Archetype and Dr Grant as equity partners to develop the next generation device. Our aim is to learn from the use of the first generation and make Gen 2 smaller, brighter and with even better suction.”