Collaboration between MBI students and health care innovators advances new medical device

By Eileen Hoftyzer

A unique collaboration between a group of graduate students and a team of health care providers and researchers has helped advance a new device that aims to improve outcomes of cancer surgeries.

Safeena Shajani, Danika Sikri and Amy Wall – collectively known as the ClearView Innovators team – were part of the inaugural cohort of the Master of Biomedical Innovation (MBI) program, a one-year project-based graduate program where students learn how to bring health care innovations forward into commercial markets. Through the project, the group applied their learnings and experience from the MBI program and gained valuable experience in collaborating with health care professionals.

“Collaboration is a cornerstone of how we should approach problem solving in health care,” says Shajani. “Through this project, we’ve seen the importance of engaging health care professionals early in the innovation process. Their input is essential as it ensures that the solution you’re working on is aligned with clinical needs.”

Dr. Peter Lovrics, a surgeon at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, and a team of professors and graduate students at McMaster University have been working on developing a medical device to improve outcomes for breast cancer surgery.  The BEAR Margins device uses optical spectroscopy techniques to provide real-time feedback during surgery, helping surgeons determine whether all cancerous tissue has been successfully removed. While initially designed for breast cancer procedures, the device holds the potential for broader applications in other types of cancer surgeries.

When Dr. Lovrics’ team was unsure how to advance the device to a commercial market, he approached the Marnix E. Heersink School of Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship for guidance. The Heersink School offered Shajani, Sikri and Wall the opportunity to work with Dr. Lovrics’ team during the MBI program to help advise how to move the product forward.

Using what they had learned in the MBI, the students worked on creating a business plan, conducting a market assessment, identifying potential funding opportunities and taking other steps to help bring the device to market, while Dr. Lovrics’ team continued refining the device’s technology.

“By working on those two aspects at the same time, the whole team was able to ensure that the device not only met clinical requirements, but that it also had a viable path to market and could be scaled for broader adoption, which is really what our group focused on,” says Shajani.

They then presented the plan to the BEAR development team. The students said that because they were all working toward a common goal, the BEAR team was very receptive to their ideas.

“It was really rewarding for us to get to see the value that we provided and to see it being applied to a real-life technology,” says Wall. “I think it was a positive experience for both teams.”

Dr. Lovrics agrees. He says that the ClearView Innovators team was highly professional and efficient, was easy to communicate with, and helped them move toward the next steps of commercialization.

“As academic researchers, we have no real knowledge about the business world, marketing, commercialization, regulatory issues. We thought it would be really useful to get an objective, non-biased analysis of what we’re doing to see if we were on the right track,” he says. “[The collaboration] brought dramatic value and provided us with the analysis and insights that we had hoped for.”

The MBI program culminated in a pitch competition where students presented the projects they had been working on during the program. The ClearView Innovators team won first place in the competition with their pitch for the BEAR device, securing an investment of $2,500.

The ClearView Innovators team says that the unique opportunity to collaborate with health care professionals on a product in development helped them see how they could fill a gap and add value to the BEAR device development team.

“We fit as that missing puzzle piece to address the gap that they saw to help their product succeed,” says Sikri. “This project helped me learn that individuals who aren’t working in health care can add a lot of value toward a project that is healthcare-focused and we can provide feedback that can help a product excel.”

Dr. Lovrics and his team are continuing to refine the device, aiming to validate its effectiveness in fresh tumour samples and modify it for use in clinical settings. In the meantime, the work from the students has helped clarify how they can bring the product to market. And as the ClearView Innovators team starts the next stage of their careers, they say they are grateful for the practical experience they got from working on the project.

“Being able to collaborate with the team of professionals who have different areas of expertise was really valuable,” says Wall. “We’re all very grateful to the MBI program for this opportunity and fantastic learning experience.”