Year: 2010-11

Company: Kinetic Concepts Inc.

Liaison(s): Sy Griffey, Rick Owens

Kinetic Concepts (KCI) was established in 1976 with the mission of improving the quality of life for immobilized patients and preventing skin breakdown in disabled patients. Today, KCI is a global leader in medical technology and a leading international manufacturer of a diverse portfolio of proprietary products. In 2008, KCI acquired LifeCell for their technology in tissue regeneration products. LifeCell’s advanced biologic products, Alloderm® and Strattice™, are used in a number of operations to provide enhanced support and accelerated tissue growth. The KCI/LifeCell team has been tasked with conducting a global platform review to identify current and future technology innovations and biosurgical techniques that will impact how at-risk wounds and infected wounds are treated. This information will then be compared to the current and planned product portfolios of the KCI divisions (Active Healing Solutions [AHS], Regenerative Medicine [LifeCell] and Therapeutic Support Systems [TSS]), to identify synergies and new product opportunities. To aggregate this information the team must formulate a database for classifying and scoring the technologies. The construction of this database requires a useable interface and features that enable KCI and LifeCell to score, filter, sort, and save the information pertaining to the technologies. In addition, the team must create technology summaries for ease of review. The team must also conduct interviews with key opinion leaders to provide supplemental information for the database and to gain a new perspective on the problems that bacterial infections cause and how they are currently treated. In addition, the team will analyze the business and technical risks for KCI and LifeCell with the adoption of a new technology.