Medical Innovation Gets Healthy Boost from New Grant Program

Cleveland Clinic Innovations and Protolabs collaborate to offer access to funding and manufacturing services for med device and medtech product development

A new grant program offered by Cleveland Clinic Innovations and Protolabs to help advance medical industry innovation will provide funding and on-demand manufacturing services to med device and medtech companies working to turn their ideas into real-world products and devices.

The Cool Idea Award: Healthcare Grant is an extension of Protolabs’ flagship Cool Idea Award and is open to members of the Cleveland Clinic Healthcare Innovations Alliance, a network of healthcare institutions and corporations focused on innovation. Selected winners will be awarded in-kind manufacturing services from Protolabs to support product development, such as building prototypes or supporting initial production runs, and eventual commercialization of products. Those manufacturing services from Protolabs include industrial-grade 3D printing (additive manufacturing), CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, and injection molding.

“This relationship with Protolabs will help the inventor communities across our Alliance program more rapidly develop and test their solutions, and ultimately improve patient care.”

Winners will have access to manufacturing services from Protolabs including 3D printing, which among many medical applications, can be used to build microfluidic components.

Recipients of the healthcare grant program will be chosen twice a year with judges made up of Cleveland Clinic Innovations and Protolabs representatives. Current members of the Innovations Alliance include Parker Hannifin, MedStar Health, the Innovation Institute, SABIC, Avera Health, and Bon Secours Health System, among others.

“This dedicated funding for the Cleveland Clinic Healthcare Innovations Alliance is an exciting extension of our award program,” said Vicki Holt, President and CEO of Protolabs. “The Alliance shares our commitment to fostering and accelerating innovation, making the partnership a natural fit. The medical industry makes up one of Protolabs’ largest segments of customers so we are well-versed in the intricacies of bringing medical products to market.”

"We are excited to welcome Protolabs to our Innovations Alliance program,” said Pete O’Neill, Executive Director at Cleveland Clinic Innovations. “Healthcare is changing rapidly, and we must innovate at a similar pace to improve outcomes for patients everywhere. This relationship with Protolabs will help the inventor communities across our Alliance program more rapidly develop and test their solutions, and ultimately improve patient care.”

Protolabs’ flagship Cool Idea Award began in 2011 and has granted more than $1 million in manufacturing services to those with promising new product ideas. Individuals or companies not affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic Healthcare Innovations Alliance are welcome to apply to the main Cool Idea Award’s program, which accepts applications four times a year.