The Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI) helps verify, validate and accelerate the development and commercialization of new medical technologies that save lives and improve patient care. From our Northyards and 14th Street facilities in midtown Atlanta, we help find the finish line for medtech innovations at any point on the pathway from bench to bedside.
Have a clinical partner?
Rigors increase in intensity based on predicate technologies or devices and the relative invasive nature of their use, adjacent to, in contact with, or invasive within the patient.
What we're working on
Take a look at a few of your GT peers working with GCMI.
Our history
More than two decades and hundreds of preclinical studies completed, GCMI remains an industry leader in medtech design, development, preclinical testing and bioskills training programs.
Funding support
GCMI has dedicated, annual funding for medtech innovation at Georgia Tech, specifically for projects we believe have high potential for successful commercialization.
Who We Help and How
We help individual clinician innovators, start up companies, engineers and scientists with university supported technologies, large and small medical technology customers including industry partners and health systems. Because medtech innovation is endlessly more rigorous than other types of new technology commercialization or advancement, our milestone driven process helps ensure our customers’ ideas achieve a capital efficient path to market from IP, market assessment, design, prototyping, testing and training.
GT Researchers and Faculty Working with GCMI
Scott Hollister, Patsy and Alan Dorris Endowed Chair in Pediatric Technology, Professor, BME
Hollister and his team of biomedical engineers collaborated with the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI) so that GCMI and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta on Georgia's first 3D printed tracheal implant in a pediatric patient.
Omer Inan, Linda J. and Mark C. Smith Chair and Associate Professor, ECE
After an IV needle has been inserted into a vein, there are various factors that can cause it to leak, either just beneath the skin or even deeper, into surrounding tissues. This painful process of unintended leakage is called infiltration.
W. Hong Yeo, Associate Professor, Woodruff Faculty Fellow
Currently available digital stethoscopes are durable but expensive, bulky and heavy for pediatrics, not capable of continuously monitoring sounds and subject to cross contamination. Dr. Yeo'S wireless flexible technology flips the script.
Select Georgia Tech / GCMI Collaborations
More from our Georgia Tech news and features category, including Capstone Design course spotlights in which “Students work in teams to design, build, and test prototypes with real world applications.” GCMI has proudly supported Capstone Design teams since 2018.
Taking a Bite Out of a 9.5% ORIF Re-Operation Rate
Check out the work of Spring 2023 Capstone Team JAWWS and how GCMI supported their efforts to address a strong unmet clinical need. Few people, if any, actually enjoy being in the dentist’s chair, correct? If that’s true, certainly no one enjoys the oral surgeon’s operating room undergoing an open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF)…
Center for Medtech Excellence Shares 2023, 2024 Cohort Dates
Medtech startups or established businesses looking to scale are encouraged to apply for one of the upcoming 16-week accelerator cohorts at the Center for MedTech Excellence. Launched in September 2022, the Center for Medtech Excellence catalyzes the development and commercialization of breakthrough biotechnology, medical devices, life science and therapeutic innovations. Primary areas of focus include…
Funding Support for GT Innovators and Researchers with Promising Medical Technologies
Funding varies in specific levels from fiscal year to fiscal year, specifically supports projects with high potential for successful commercialization, follow on funding and improved patient outcomes. Projects are selected by GCMI leadership in consultation with the board of directors. These funds are not for staff / salary or lab support.
You’re a researcher or engineer who has found a solid unmet clinical need. Excellent! Now the rigorous work begins.
You’re a researcher or engineer who has found a clinician with a strong unmet clinical need your technology might solve. Outstanding! Too many technologies go looking for problems to solve instead of finding the clinically stated problem first and fitting your technology to meet it in a way that truly works in the clinical…
2022 Fall Capstone Team Wristy Business Tackles a Standard of Care Treatment Suffering from a 40-70% Failure Rate
Treatment for SLL tears relies on casts and orthopedic screws to stabilize bones while a surgically repaired or reconstructed ligament heals. I”Because we followed a solid pathway, we had a lot more latitude to make positive changes that should increase the likelihood of clinical utility and positive patient impact for our device.”
Stars Align – Stridelink quickens march to commercialization with remote monitoring capabilities, CMS CPT codes
The team’s work to date, from concept to the technology’s current state, had primed it to seize the opportunity presented by the January 2022 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announcement of five new remote therapeutic monitoring CPT codes.
GCMI’s History
In the late 1990s, Dr. Robert Matheny, Chief Scientific Officer of CorMatrix Cardiovascular Inc., was looking for accessible resources, including preclinical support, needed to support innovation in care for cardiovascular physicians and their patients.
In 1999, his collaboration with other Atlanta area interventional cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons resulted in the development of a preclinical CRO called American Cardiovascular Research Institute which later became Translational Testing and Training Laboratories, Inc. or T3 Labs.
GCMI was founded in 2012 by Tiffany Wilson, now CEO of the Philadelphia Science Center. In 2016 GCMI became a Georgia Tech affiliate and acquired responsibility for T3 Labs making GCMI an end-to-end medtech innovation center.
More than two decades and hundreds of preclinical studies completed, GCMI remains an industry leader in medtech design, development, preclinical testing and bioskills training programs. We have helped more than 50 new medical technologies achieve regulatory approval.
Sherry Farrugia, who most recently served as executive director of Georgia Tech Pediatric Technologies, now serves as CEO of GCMI. She is the 2023 recipient of the Global Center for Health Innovation’s highest honor, the Industry Growth Award.
On Funding and Clinical Partners
We've got some funding for promising medical technologies.
GCMI has dedicated, annual funding for medtech innovation at Georgia Tech, specifically for projects we believe have high potential for successful commercialization, follow-on funding and improved patient outcomes. Funded projects are selected by GCMI leadership inclusive of consultation with the board of directors.
You've found a clinical partner. Now what?
New medical technologies are subject to the significant, necessary rigors applied by regulatory bodies and, ultimately, market forces. Those rigors increase in intensity based on predicate technologies or devices and the relative invasive nature of their use, adjacent to, in contact with, or invasive within the patient.
Get in touch. It's never too early.
If you want to know more about medtech innovation at Georgia Tech including who we are, what we do and how we do it, contact GCMI Director of Scientific Affairs Evan Goldberg via email evan.goldberg@t3labs.org.
More To Know
Phase Zero: The place to start for your new medical technology or idea.
Doing the right things early and following a rigorous phase gated process can substantially increase the likelihood of milestone achievement at any point in a technology’s commercialization pathway.
