Advanced Materials and Medical Devices

Advanced Materials

Advanced materials is the extension of research on the fundamental phenomena in condensed matter physics and solid state chemistry to functional materials including metal, ceramics, polymers, biomaterials, and electronic, photonic and magnetic materials. This multidisciplinary area of research has traditionally engaged physicists, chemists, materials scientists, and engineers of all kinds. Increasingly, the field is benefiting from the participation of an even wider range of disciplines, including biochemistry, biology, earth sciences, mathematics, computer science, and medicine. In terms of application, advanced materials are a critical key to technological advancements in a number of industries such as electronics, information technology, transportation and aerospace, environmental protection, manufacturing, medicine and health care, and civil infrastructure.

Medical Devices

The medical device and diagnostics industry produces equipment designed to aid medical therapies such as pacemakers, artificial joints, drug-eluting stents, and laparoscopic devices for minimally invasive surgery. Medical devices are commonly broken into the following categories:

•	Life support equipment: equipment used to maintain a patient's bodily function such as medical ventilators, heart-lung machines, ECMO, and dialysis machines.
•	Therapeutic equipment: devices that include infusion pumps (by far the most common), medical lasers and LASIK surgical machines.
•	Medical monitors: devices that allow medical staff to measure a patient's medical state such as ECGs, EEGs, blood pressure, and dissolved gases in the blood.
•	Medical imaging machines: equipment that aids a diagnosis such as ultrasound, MRI, CAT-scans, PET, and x-ray machines.
•	Medical laboratory equipment: devices that automate or help analyze blood, urine and genes.

The R&D intensive medical devices industry is also poised to make further advancements in the quality of care with innovations in micro-miniature and remote surgery techniques, DNA-based diagnostics, tissue-engineered organs, and advanced information technologies. According to the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AvaMed), the medical device and diagnostics industry invested 11.4 percent of its sales in R&D in 2002. Small companies, including many start-ups spent an average of 343 percent of their revenue on R&D. This high level of R&D investment is only surpassed by the pharmaceutical sector.