/ Medical Technology
2009-03-11
Collaboration Promolding and TU Delft
Jac. Gofers of Promolding works together with Richard Goossen of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (Delft University of Technology)
Jac. Gofers on his company:
Promolding is the leading specialist in the field of injection moulding, for which we do the product development, engineering, final development and industrialisation. We do 70 per cent of the production ourselves; 30 per cent is done by our clients.
Bringing in new knowledge is very important for our company. That is why we have taken on two highly trained new members of staff, both with a PhD, to join the many university-trained engineers our team already numbers.
We at Promolding set great store by our network of knowledge institutions. We can give our clients that something extra by interweaving technology and business.
The Medical Section of our company came into contact with Delft University of Technology via an engineer who had recently graduated there. We went on to complete a large number of projects; several of these became successful, others we discontinued. We are co-investors in a project currently still in the pre-seed stage
(January 2009).
Our priority is to interweave the network of knowledge, including that of materials, with the world of commerce. That is why we have established a relationship not only with Delft University of Technology but also with a number of hospitals and with TNO (the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research). Our contacts with various knowledge institutions allow us to open the doors to the experts we need. This way, not only are we able to benefit from technological expertise but we also have access to such equipment as an electron microscope or a tensile testing machine.
Our relationships are reciprocal, as I am a lecturer at the Universities of Delft and Groningen, where I teach injection-moulding technology. We are also approached by medical specialists working in hospitals, who bring us their ideas for developing new medical products. One example is a product for research into vasoconstriction, which we developed jointly with Erasmus Medical Centre. This product is now sold worldwide.
A product for research into vasoconstriction
The medical world is a difficult market. Product development takes a long time and financing is complex due to the fact that the financer is not the end user. Not only have we learned that cooperation with knowledge institutions is of vital importance, we have also discovered that one of the parties involved must have the intention to really take the product to the market.
