Inside VTT’s Newest Pilot Envi­ron­ment: Fast-Track­ing the Future of Med­ical Devices in Oulu

What if the jour­ney from med­ical pro­to­type to patient-ready device didn’t take years?

That is the ques­tion VTT is answer­ing with its ground­break­ing new pilot envi­ron­ment in Oulu. Designed to accel­er­ate inno­va­tion in diag­nos­tics and wear­able tech, the facil­i­ty could rede­fine how quick­ly life-sav­ing tech­nolo­gies reach the peo­ple who need them. With advanced tools for pro­to­typ­ing and test­ing under real-world con­di­tions, this envi­ron­ment offers star­tups and researchers a much faster route from lab to life.

On June 3rd, BusinessOulu’s Health and Life Sci­ence team had the chance to attend the inau­gu­ra­tion of VTT’s new pilot­ing envi­ron­ment for med­ical devices. Locat­ed at the heart of Finland’s deep tech ecosys­tem, this EUR 3.4 mil­lion facil­i­ty is designed to solve a per­sis­tent issue in health­care solu­tions devel­op­ment: the jump from promis­ing pro­to­types to mar­ket-ready and patient-friend­ly solu­tions.

The envi­ron­ment is a col­lab­o­ra­tion space for accel­er­at­ing diag­nos­tics, mon­i­tor­ing solu­tions, and patient-cen­tered care tools, and its key focus areas include pre­ven­tive health mon­i­tor­ing, ear­ly can­cer detec­tion, and rapid diag­nos­tics, enhanc­ing patient com­fort and decreas­ing depen­dence on tra­di­tion­al lab­o­ra­to­ry tests. The pilot line allows com­pa­nies and researchers to pro­duce small- to mid-size pro­to­type batch­es using advanced tech­nolo­gies such as microflu­idics, pho­ton­ics, and wear­able sen­sor inte­gra­tion, all in com­pli­ance with med­ical device reg­u­la­tions.

A Launch­pad for health inno­va­tion

Unique in Europe, this pilot line has the abil­i­ty to sup­port ear­ly-stage devel­op­ment all the way through to pre-clin­i­cal val­i­da­tion. Inno­va­tions like dis­creet car­dio­vas­cu­lar mon­i­tor­ing patch­es or microflu­idic sen­sors for ear­ly can­cer detec­tion can now be devel­oped, test­ed, and refined under one roof. The reg­u­lat­ed envi­ron­ment sig­nif­i­cant­ly facil­i­tates pro­to­type man­u­fac­tur­ing while help­ing stream­line cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es, reduc­ing both time and cost for inno­va­tors aim­ing for mar­ket entry.

“The pilot line enables the fab­ri­ca­tion of pro­to­types and test series using indus­try-com­pat­i­ble man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es and prac­tices. This enables a smooth tran­si­tion from R&D to indus­tri­al-scale pro­duc­tion with­out changes in the prod­uct designs”, explains Jus­si Hiltunen, Research Pro­fes­sor. “The man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ties cov­er elec­tron­ics and pho­ton­ics pack­ag­ing of the diag­nos­tics instru­ments and wear­able devices, togeth­er with the inte­gra­tion of microflu­idics plat­forms for the in-vit­ro diag­nos­tics. The dri­ver is to sup­port the medtech com­pa­nies that need help in their hard­ware devel­op­ment.”

Event High­lights

The inau­gu­ra­tion kicked off with open­ing remarks from Erja Turunen, VTT’s Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, set­ting the tone for a future-for­ward approach to medtech. This was fol­lowed by a video greet­ing from Mari-Leena Talvi­tie, Finland’s Min­is­ter of Sci­ence and Cul­ture, who high­light­ed the nation­al impor­tance of inno­va­tion-dri­ven health­care.

Next, Kari Rönkä, Vice Pres­i­dent at VTT, pre­sent­ed the vision behind the pilot envi­ron­ment and the ways it will cut down time-to-mar­ket for new tech­nolo­gies, empha­siz­ing the need for agile and scal­able pro­to­typ­ing solu­tions to bring research break­throughs clos­er to clin­i­cal use.

Two com­pelling com­pa­ny col­lab­o­ra­tion case stud­ies fol­lowed: Juhani Kemp­painen, Man­ag­er of Sen­sor Tech­nolo­gies at Polar, shared insights into inte­grat­ing advanced sen­sor tech­nol­o­gy into wear­able devices; and Tuan Hoang Nguyen, CTO at Finnad­vance, spoke about the poten­tial of organ-on-chip tech­nolo­gies and how facil­i­ties like VTT’s pilot line can help bridge the gap between lab research and pre-clin­i­cal devel­op­ment.

The event con­clud­ed with a demo ses­sion and guid­ed tour of the pilot line, giv­ing atten­dees a close-up look at the state-of-the-art envi­ron­ment.

Look­ing Ahead for Oulu and beyond

VTT’s ini­tia­tive aims to bring togeth­er health ecosys­tems and accel­er­ate inno­va­tion that gen­uine­ly improves lives. The pilot line pro­vides a key new tool for researchers, healthtech com­pa­nies, and health pro­fes­sion­als aim­ing to bring next-gen­er­a­tion diag­nos­tics and mon­i­tor­ing solu­tions to patients faster, more safe­ly, and more effi­cient­ly, all with the sup­port of the new Oulu-based facil­i­ty.

“Oulu is tra­di­tion­al­ly known as a tech­nol­o­gy cen­ter with strong exper­tise in, for exam­ple, elec­tron­ics, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, and soft­ware”, says Hiltunen. “There is a sig­nif­i­cant growth poten­tial in health tech­nolo­gies, and an inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized ecosys­tem has already been formed in this domain. To fur­ther strength­en the ecosys­tem, VTT has invest­ed in a pilot pro­duc­tion line to com­ple­ment what the Oulu region has to offer to accel­er­ate the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of inno­va­tions.”

We look for­ward to see­ing future col­lab­o­ra­tions and the effect this envi­ron­ment will have across the region­al, nation­al, and Euro­pean health inno­va­tion land­scape.

Text: Beat­riz Rocha, Health and Life Sci­ence, Busi­nes­sOulu
Images: VTT