Medical Device Labs
Introduction
Medical Device Labs drive healthcare innovation by identifying and validating critical clinical needs, generating innovative solutions, and exploring potential market opportunities. These labs collaborate with healthcare professionals to ensure that new concepts address real-world challenges, improve patient outcomes, and meet the evolving demands of the industry. Through a combination of user-centered research and strategic market analysis, Medical Device Labs bridge clinical insights with healthcare solutions that are impactful and commercially viable.
Corporate Medical Labs
We work with corporate partners to identify opportunity areas and drive the development of new products through interdisciplinary research and rapid prototyping. Our process utilizes clinical observation, market research, and direct user engagement through interviews and testing.
By validating each concept with these rigorous methods, we ensure that the products we develop address real-world challenges and deliver meaningful value to our corporate partners and their customers.
Internal Medical Labs
The internal medical labs at the Innovation Center are research and development spaces that work on healthcare innovation projects in collaboration with departments and clinicians within the College of Medicine.
UR* Lab
The Urology Lab (UR* Lab) brings together practicing urologists and faculty from industrial design, business, and engineering to guide urology residents and fellows through a year-long experiential learning innovation project. Residents and fellows learn how to conduct design research, perform market analysis and IP evaluation, develop rapid prototypes, and validate their concepts through benchtop and user testing.
ORBIT Lab
Working closely with the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, the ORBIT Lab is made up of an interdisciplinary group of students and researchers specializing in the development of ophthalmic devices. Using a tailored development process, ORBIT Lab provides a market assessment, desirability assessment, technology assessment, and proof-of-concept functional prototypes.
MAD Lab
The Medical Accelerator for Devices (MAD) Lab collaborates with UIC clinicians to advance medical device ideas. An interdisciplinary team, which includes expertise in engineering, business, and design, conducts clinical needs validation, generates innovative solutions, and identifies potential market opportunities. MAD Lab’s goal is to support College of Medicine inventors in moving their ideas toward commercialization.
Process
Discover
We begin understanding the problem through conducting primary and secondary research. For medical device projects, this often includes working directly with clinicians and healthcare teams to observe workflows and uncover unmet clinical needs. These insights may emerge from pain points in efficiency, usability, gaps in current equipment, or regulatory or operational barriers. Early engagement and input from advisors help us shape the challenge and align it with what’s possible and scalable in a healthcare setting.
Medical device teams also engage in extensive secondary research that involves market analysis, regulatory reviews, and literature analysis to better understand the context of the project.
Define
With clear goals in place, we begin evaluating and refining solution paths using findings from the Discover phase. Clinical insights turn into clear opportunity areas considering product requirements including technical feasibility, user requirements, and use environments alongside key considerations like regulatory, operational, and financial constraints, market potential, and market or health systems fit.
Develop
We develop device concepts through iterative collaboration between clinicians and lab teams of engineers and designers. Prototypes are built and refined based on usability, clinical input, manufacturability, and compliance need. When applicable, we pursue early-stage regulatory conversations, funding applications, conduct preliminary tests, and generate user feedback to support continued development. Our focus is on developing functional, testable solutions that are incorporate user context and system realities.
Deliver
After extensive development and refinement, projects move into the next phase where teams present findings and transfer materials. Deliverables may include validated prototypes, test results, implementation recommendations, and market strategy.
Projects may move toward translational research including patent filing, FDA Pre-Sub, and clinical trials, or commercialization including product refinement, company formation, and STTR/SBIR funding.
