More than 400 venture capitalists and medical device business leaders witnessed the latest, cutting-edge technologies developed by the region's emerging medical device companies. Twenty-five pre-venture, presented their medical innovations to the group in the hopes of convincing them to help fund their devices. The presentations took place last week at the 10th Annual MassMEDIC MedTech Investors Conference at UMass in Boston.

Among the range of new devices showcased was an infertility treatment device that offers comparable pregnancy rates to conventional treatments with lower risk, which can be performed in a physician's office and at a fraction of the cost; a device that is surgically implanted within a primary spinal cord injury that mitigates secondary damage and stimulates neuroplastic repair processes; and a point-of-care diagnostic system that provides doctors with real-time, lab-quality results for the most frequently ordered blood tests.

The conference also featured presentations by Susan Windham-Bannister, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the state agency implementing the new Life Sciences Initiative, and John Westwood of LEK Consulting, who presented an analysis of investment in area medical device companies.

Massachusetts is home to the nation's second largest concentration of medical device manufacturing and development, with more than 225 manufacturers, 21,000 employees, annual shipments of $5.5 billion, and exports totaling $2.4 billion.

Some of the technologies presented at the event included:
-- A line of knee implants and instrumentation: that provides patients with a custom-fit, minimally invasive alternative to traditional knee replacement surgery; developed by ConforMIS, Inc. of Burlington, Mass.
-- A device that tests for genetic disorders before conception: for 50+ high penetrance genetic disorders. It's an all-in-one, low cost device that can be administered by physicians in a clinical setting; developed by Good Start Genetics, Inc. (GSG) in Boston, Mass.
-- A non-invasive detector that scans the body: and detects and measures pain, injury and dysfunction, and identifies the tissue types involved; developed by Signal Insight, Inc. of Freeport, Maine.

The following companies and organizations presented their technology and business plans at the conference:

Avedro, Inc. (Waltham, MA)
INVO Bioscience (Beverly, MA)
BioSense Technologies, Inc. (Woburn, MA)
InVivo Therapeutics, Inc. (Cambridge, MA)

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