About PATH Medical devices and health technologies

Connect with Medical Devices and Health Technologies Program leaders at innovation@path.org

All too often in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), medical devices and health technologies are inaccessible because they are too expensive or impractical for use in under-resourced health settings. We respond to these challenges and health system gaps by collaborating with partners and innovators to design, test, refine, introduce, and scale devices and tools with the potential to achieve unprecedented wins for health.

Together with our public- and private-sector partners, the Medical Devices and Health Technologies Program has investigated hundreds of innovations and advanced the most promising and appropriate technologies into affordable commercial products for use in country health programs and global health campaigns. Our work in devices and tools extends across four portfolios to address the diseases and health issues that disproportionately affect women and children in low-resource settings.

Medical Device and Health Technologies program's global impact

Our end-to-end product development: services from technology ideation to impact

The Medical Devices and Health Technologies program (MDHT) is a multidisciplinary group of approximately 60 public health researchers, clinicians, scientists, engineers, designers, health economists, project managers, and business strategists. We collaborate with innovators and can provide support at each stage of product development, and create incentives to lower the risk of entering developing markets for our private-sector partners.

Assessment: With country and global partners, we assess public health needs and identify strategies and technologies that can fill these gaps. MDHT teams have years of experience in conducting innovation landscaping, market, and technological assessments of cost-effective technologies appropriate for use in low-resource settings. We also use these assessments to build strategies and partnerships for further evaluation, manufacturing, commercialization, and introduction.

Technical research and development of products and product categories: Medical Device and Health Technologies staff develop, adapt, and advance innovations in-country and in-house at our state-of-the-art product development shop and laboratory. Our end-to-end development, from an idea to impact, uses our honed multidisciplinary approach and stays focused on solutions for the end user, and includes:

• Needs assessments, field testing, and clinical trials.
• Product design and development, using a holistic user-centered design process informed by human factors engineering standards and best practices.
• Market assessments, commercialization, program introduction, and regulatory strategies.

We conduct landmark research onsite in our Product Development Engineering Laboratory and Research and Development Biotechnology Laboratory. PATH’s 5,000-square-foot Product Development Shop is divided into a machine shop, model shop, product and environmental testing bay, and a usability and focus group study room where our staff employ rapid prototyping techniques such as 3-D printing, fabrication, machining, and developmental and quality assurance. Our technical bench teams conduct in-house pharmaceutical sciences in our custom-built 5,000 square-foot, multipurpose biosafety level-2 isolation facility which is equipped to produce liquid, lyophilized, and spray-dried vaccine and pharmaceutical products at preclinical and pilot scale.

In multiple countries, PATH’s Living Labs Initiative accelerates the pace of health innovation by co-creating with users in a human-centered design process to rapidly design, test and scale solutions to their long-standing challenges.

Product accelerator: Our multidisciplinary teams provide tailored technical assistance at any stage of the value chain to social entrepreneurs and small-scale innovators wanting to accelerate the development, introduction, and scale-up of their high-impact health innovations. We have more than 40 years’ of experience in working side by side with partners and innovators in LMICs, building the expertise and local capacity needed to develop and introduce sustainable products.

Gap-filling technical support: For high-potential innovations being developed by industry, we can also fill the gap and provide technical support across the value chain, including user-centered product design, development, in-house and in-country testing, commercialization, and introduction.

Procurement and supply technical assistance: For more than two decades, PATH’s procurement and supply technical assistance team has worked with country governments and multilateral organizations to improve the quality, reduce the cost, and speed the delivery of essential health care supplies. Our efforts focus on strengthening human resources and systems, adhering to procurement policies and procedures, and fostering coordination of efforts so countries can more efficiently conduct future procurements and manage supplies. Additionally, PATH supports development of internationally-recognized technical specifications for medical devices. Our extensive experience in strengthening procurement and supply systems has helped countries ensure that health commodities are safe, effective, and available at an affordable price, enabling countries to get the maximum value from scarce health care dollars.

Strengthening innovation ecosystems: We work to create and enable a policy and regulatory environment that encourages the use of lifesaving technologies for low-resources settings. We do this through supporting effective innovation pathways at national and global levels; building capacity through guidance and trainings; and convening stakeholders for peer learning, alignment, and collaboration. By leading working groups, acting as secretariat, participating in technical advisory groups, and presenting at global health technology conferences, we help foster strong political champions and evidence-based policies that are critical to ensuring that health is within reach for everyone.

Email our team of medical device and health technology innovators at innovation@path.org.