MEMPHIS, Tennessee, October 20, 2015 – ZeroTo510 Medical Device Accelerator and Xi’an Lianchuang Biomedical Incubator in China have entered into a cooperative agreement to encourage the development of medical devices and to catalyze the exchange of medical device technologies between the United States and Chinese markets.
Lianchuang is a biomedical incubator that provides facilities and resources to assist medical device companies either from the United States or China to form and develop in the Xi’an area. ZeroTo510 will use its nationally ranked curriculum to assist Chinese entrepreneurs at Lianchuang in developing and preparing devices to enter the U.S. market.
In turn, Lianchuang will assist with the introduction of U.S. technologies in to the Chinese market as well as provide policy advice and facilitate manufacturing, marketing and financing opportunities for U.S. device makers.
ZeroTo510 is a 12-week, mentor-driven program created to help medical device entrepreneurs navigate the start-up process, refine their business models and achieve the Food and Drug Administration’s 510(k) pre-market notification filing. The four selected companies for 2015 have received $50,000 in initial seed capital from co-investors Innova, a pre-seed, seed and early-stage investor focused on starting and funding high-growth companies in the healthcare, technology and healthcare technology fields across the state of Tennessee, and MB Venture Partners, a Memphis-based venture capital firm that provides equity capital and strategic direction to life sciences start-ups.
Now in its fourth year, the program has accelerated the creation of 20 new companies, nearly 40 jobs, and $7.5 million in investments.
ZeroTo510 is operated by Memphis Bioworks Foundation and is an initiative of the Greater Memphis Regional Accelerator, a program funded by Launch Tennessee and the State of Tennessee.