The MedTech Innovator Roadshow is Heading to Baltimore – What You Should Know
By Alex Keown
March 8, 2023
All eyes from the medical technology world will be on Baltimore when the 2023 MedTech Innovator Roadshow comes to town.
The roadshow, the industry’s premiere showcase and competition for innovative technologies, will be held at the IMET at the Colwell Center over the course of three days, March 28-30. MedTech Innovator is a global competition and accelerator for medical device, digital health and diagnostic companies. This is the first time the event has been held in Baltimore.
Stefanie Trop, Senior Manager, Business Development at the Maryland Department of Commerce, said the roadshow was initially supposed to be held in Baltimore in 2020. However, the show was put off due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it’s here and Baltimore will become the epicenter of the medtech and medical device industry.
The MedTech Innovator Roadshow will be divided between Biotools and medical technology. The first day of the conference will focus on biotools candidates, while the second and third days will involve medtech candidates pitching their products. It is estimated that about 80 companies will participate in the three day event. Trop said she anticipates 30 companies will be invited to participate in the Biotools event. The other expected 50 companies will be asked to compete in the MedTech Innovator Showcase, she said.
Competing companies will vie not only for the honor of winning the event but also $500,000 in non-dilutive cash prizes. Beyond the cash prize, companies will receive high visibility across the industry and will be able to gain access to a network of investors and mentors who can help achieve the next level of growth.
Baltimore is home to a thriving medtech community, due in no small part to the city’s top-ranked medical research institutions, Johns Hopkins Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The universities are home to leading researchers who are at the forefront of medical innovation. The city is also home to multiple accelerators incubating medtech startups.
Trop pointed to LaunchPort, a medtech manufacturing accelerator guided by industry veteran Bob Storey as one of the reasons for the industry’s growth in Baltimore. Located in the City Garage Science and Technology Park within the City of Baltimore’s Enterprise Zone, LaunchPort provides startups a space to work in a collaborative manufacturing environment that includes multiple core services, including financial guidance, quality assurance expertise and more.
Another incubator, MDC Startup Studio helps medtech entrepreneurs take their ideas from concept to company. In 2022, NeuroTech Harbor was founded by Johns Hopkins University and Howard University. The site received funding from the National Institutes of Health to help innovators accelerate the development of cutting-edge solutions for neurological conditions
This fostering environment for innovation is one of the reasons MedTech Innovator selected Baltimore for its 2023 East Coast conference site. In fact, MedTech Innovator will only host two U.S. roadshows this year, one in Los Angeles at the beginning of March, and one in Baltimore.
That means that Baltimore outperformed every other hub of innovation on the East Coast, Trop said.
“This shows that Baltimore and Maryland, our life sciences and medtech communities are really competitive with larger cities on the global stage. We had all the resources needed to be here,” she said.
The roadshow has yet to publicly announce the companies that will be participating. Trop is aware multiple Baltimore area companies applied to participate but did not know who may be selected.
“We have some great companies here and really want them to do well,” she said. “We have a healthy and growing medtech community in Maryland. You can go from an idea to a product right here in our home.”
According to Commerce Department Data, there are more than 300 medical device and digital health companies in Maryland. Those companies support more than 5,683 jobs in the state.
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Alex Keown is a freelance journalist who writes about a variety of subjects including the pharma, biotech, and life science industries. Prior to freelancing, Alex has served as a staff writer and editor for several publications.
