Keys to Success in Maryland MedTech Manufacturing
As Maryland seeks to become a hub for medical device scale-up, two local industry leaders share advice on partnership and support.
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Maryland manufacturing is experiencing some policy tailwinds recently, adding to momentum already built by a highly active group of medical technology entrepreneurs. BioBuzz recently sat down with two leaders in the space–Bob Storey at The LaunchPort, a MedTech manufacturing accelerator in Baltimore Peninsula’s City Garage facility, and Cyrus Etemad-Moghadam, President and Founder of Forest Hill-based RPM Tech–to get their perspectives on manufacturing, particularly in the field of biotechnology in medical devices. Their collaborative efforts are boosting manufacturing capabilities in Maryland and the wider Mid-Atlantic region.
As we learned, a combination of demonstrated capabilities and plans for expansion that are supported by state leadership should strengthen local cooperation and attract further companies from outside the region to establish their teams and technologies here.
Building on the Baltimore and Maryland manufacturing tradition, Bob and Cyrus are part of a growing consortium of individuals and organizations who are instrumental in building a vibrant regional life science manufacturing industry. They are focused on hand-in-hand cooperation that leads to the retention of scaled up products with as much of their supply chain as possible staying in the local area.
Storey emphasizes how important it is for society to value startups and see the resources they need as valuable seed-planting, not a money pit. This is especially necessary for the biotech and medical device sectors, where getting to scale is extremely resource intensive. The puzzle to be solved in Baltimore, Storey says, is how to ensure that there’s Main Street investment that leads to a strong ecosystem with support for both early- and late-stage companies.
Storey is glad to highlight programs like the Maryland Tech Council’s collaboration with Hood College on workforce training, which is essential for building the technology, the company infrastructure, and anchoring the staff and operations locally for the long term. “But at the end of the day,” he adds, “the thing that every emerging growth startup company needs is customers–they need business, and they need the programs to enable them to go get business.”
That brass-tacks approach has driven cooperation between Storey and Etemad-Moghadam, and between their organizations. The LaunchPort’s expertise and resources help companies transition from design to manufacturing, even taking in regulatory aspects to acknowledge and avoid pitfalls on their way to the market. With the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, FDA, NIH, and so many other federal titans and their veteran staff in the area, the local regulatory knowledge base is unparalleled.
When it comes to designing processes and products and then making prototypes, Etemad-Moghadam says that contract manufacturers need to move beyond following prescribed and defined instructions and make sure they are providing real help to emerging companies. The LaunchPort has brought a full range of expertise to take on a project but also help companies go to the next phase, he says. He laments the departure of companies that his team worked intensively with to design great products locally, only to see the company decamp to California or even Canada. Effective private-private and public-private ties can help overcome past challenges and strengthen the ecosystem. “It’s been great for us to be able to reach out to The LaunchPort and talk about specific design solutions and the impact they may have on manufacturing,” Cyrus says. “All of these things have to be considered now.”
On August 7, Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced that in fiscal year 2024, the state’s Maryland Manufacturing 4.0 program would provide a total of $1 million to local companies to update and upgrade their systems. The program’s first round granted awards between $25,000 to $500,000 to companies to invest in quality control, 3D scanners and printers, and other material enhancements to their capabilities. The state aims to boost productivity and sales while lowering costs and improving skills training and worker retention. All of that is relevant to small and mid-sized businesses that manufacture for the MedTech market.
This infusion from Annapolis is part of the puzzle that Cyrus Etemad-Moghadam highlights as crucial and wide-ranging to establishing manufacturing headquarters in Maryland, keeping them in Maryland, and even attracting existing large players: “We need capability in all aspects of what is necessary to make a manufactured product, from design all the way to certification and the actual end users. It’s important to nourish that ecosystem.”
