Serial entrepreneur examines the risk-to-reward ratio balance in GI innovation

March 22, 2018|GI and Hepatology News

REPORTING FROM 2018 AGA TECH SUMMIT

BOSTON – Just out of fellowship, Christopher C. Thompson, MD, director of therapeutic endoscopy, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, adapted an antireflux suturing device for use in a bariatric procedure. It worked so well he began using it routinely and taught others the technique. That was the first step in a journey that has taken him from consulting with industry to a founder of start-ups.

“The device company heard about what we were doing and were interested,” Dr. Thompson recounted during his How-I-Did-It lecture at the 2018 AGA Tech Summit, sponsored by the AGA Center for GI Innovation and Technology. In the end, he served as a consultant in the development of a new suturing device specific for the bariatric procedure. This included helping secure a patent and learning first-hand what steps are needed to get a device to market.

“It was a great learning experience. I now knew something about the role of a consultant and the process of product innovation,” Dr. Thompson explained. He also learned that the low-risk participation of a consultant is a low-reward proposition. The new product was successful, but Dr. Thompson received no stock, and the licensing fee went to the hospital.

“I do not have any regrets. It was good for my career and fun to be involved, but there was not much financial gain for me or for my department,” Dr. Thompson said.

His subsequent experience with licensing was an incremental step forward. In one example, he worked on developing an endoscopic simulator, an important unmet need both for teaching and evaluating skills in diagnostic colonoscopy, including a kinematic analysis that helped identify techniques that are associated with high levels of skill.

“We developed the technology in-house through a series of grants. The risks were low, but the rewards were better because the money helped fund activities in our department,” he said.

That device, too, has been very successful, but Dr. Thompson said it is important to recognize how far innovation can go when the work stays in the academic setting and the goal is licensing the technology. More recently, he took a nonsurgical anastomosis device through preclinical testing, but he was then unable to attract a device company for the next steps of development.