Pediatric device development has historically faced and presently faces major barriers. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), together with Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania, are proposing to develop the """"""""Philadelphia Regional Pediatric Medical Device Consortium""""""""(Philadelphia PDC). The mission of the Philadelphia PDC is to provide seed funding and business, legal, marketing, clinical, engineering, and scientific resources to inventors of promising pediatric medical devices that will benefit children and have a strong commercialization potential. The CHOP faculty researchers and research institute infrastructure will be the basis for the broad reaching pediatric device expertise in the Philadelphia PDC. A key partner in the Philadelphia PDC is the Coulter-Drexel Translational Research Partnership at Drexel University. The Coulter-Drexel Partnership promotes, develops, and supports innovations to improve patient care by providing sound business, regulatory, and intellectual property advice from pre-eminent experts, with funding and project oversight, to promising translational projects with commercialization potential. Partnering the Philadelphia PDC with Coulter-Drexel, forms a consortium of experts in all critical aspects of pediatric medical device development (business/finance, regulatory, IP, clinical, and science/engineering), reduces costs via shared management responsibilities and resources, and leverages funding from both the Philadelphia-PDC and Coulter-Drexel on projects that merit large investment.
