The biomedical market...

is a highly complex and competitive 184 billion EUR market worldwide. On the one hand, market forecasts assure excellent growth rates for this sector. On the other hand, however, the development, manufacturing and sale of biomedical products is complicated by extremely high standards and requirements biomedical products have to meet with regard to biocompatibility, device security, quality and medical device regulations. Moreover, the reorganisation of public health systems increases the demand for cost-effective devices and efficient methods.

Microtechnologies can create new possibilities and offer solutions for this situation by making already existing devices smaller, cheaper and more reliable, but also by allowing the development of completely new types of devices and applications.

MEDICS is fully aware of this complex context. Therefore, MEDICS supports you in assessing a possible benefit from microtechnologies for your specific application and assists you when it comes to the improvement of existing devices or the development of completely new types of biomedical devices

Goals

The consortium structure of MEDICS allows clients to take full advantage of the quick and easy access to the different types of products and services offered by each member. The consortium network also allows the efficient exchange of a variety of essential resources including technical knowledge and expertise, research and manufacturing facilities and the insight to the different European healthcare systems, medical device regulations and markets.

Target Groups

MEDICS is ready to serve companies and organizations of all types and sizes, providing research activities and consulting, technological knowledge and innovation equally to small businesses, global players and governmental institutions.

History

In October 1997, MEDICS, the European Centre of Competence for Biomedical Microdevices, was launched in the framework of the European initiative EUROPRACTICE. In the last years, the MEDICS consortium was formed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT in Germany and the Centro Nacional de Microelectronica CNM in Spain.
The initial success of the consortium work led the world's largest designer and supplier of silicon chips for cardiac pacemakers, Zarlink Semiconductor, to become a member in 2002.
In 2003, the major Swiss research centre in micro- and nanotechnologies CSEM joined MEDICS, adding highly valuable expertise in this field to the consortium.

Consortium Members

Since January 2002, the MEDICS consortium consists of:

	The project co-ordinator Fraunhofer IBMT in St. Ingbert (D), stands for more than ten years of industry-oriented r&d in biomedical engineering. Microimplants, biohybrid systems, miniaturised ultrasonic devices, biocompatible packaging & interconnection and biological testing represent only part of its expertise.
	i2m DESIGN, located in Barcelona (E), is a joint venture of D+T in Spain, CCC in Uruguay and AGR-AIMS in Columbia. i2m DESIGN has strong links to the CNM and other reputed research institutes in Spain and Latin America. Their main objective is to support the development of high-tech biomedical products based on micro- and nanotechnologies.
	Zarlink Semiconductor, the new identity of the Mitel Corporation (NYSE/TSE: MLT), is specialised in the design and manufacturing of medical ASICS. Over one million pacemakers rely on Zarlink's integrated circuits. Zarlink's Medical Design Centre is located in Järfälla (S).
	CSEM is an independent research and development facility, partially funded by the Swiss confederation. It provides, under a single roof, cutting edge R&D services for medical applications. By combining microsystems technologies with wireless communication systems and embedded intelligence, CSEM offers its partners a clear competitive advantage in the medical and telemedical business.