Ideas

Over the last decade federal agencies have awarded millions of dollars in grant funding in an attempt to procure more pediatric devices.  Countless organizations, clinicians and politicians continue to champion the cause.  Yet, far too few pediatric devices are reaching clinicians’ hands.  PediaWorks anticipates that government and philanthropic funding for pediatric device development will not significantly change over the next decade.  The pediatric market size will also remain fixed.  Therefore, any plan for positive change must factor in these constraints. PediaWorks proposes that revising the methodology for identifying and prioritizing device needs is the key.  To test this hypothesis it conducted a pilot study that culminated in a new line of FDA-cleared, pediatric angiography devices and a functioning bioresobable stent prototype.  Encouraged by the results, PediaWorks intends to scale this approach across all major pediatric specialties and publish its findings.  The expected outcome is a meaningful increase the number of commercially-available pediatric devices.