Farm, a company that specializes in product development for medical device firms, is opening an office at the Cleveland Clinic’s new cardiovascular technology incubator.
Farm plans to staff the office with executives from its New Hampshire offices beginning next week, but eventually hopes to hire a dedicated Cleveland staff, said Matt Harkins, Farm’s business development manager.
“Our ultimate goal is to build a big-enough client base in Cleveland to support a staff there to do development work,” he said.
Farm is the 12th company that Cleveland Clinic’s Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center (GCIC) has brought to Ohio, said Tom Sudow, the center’s director of business development.
“This is in recognition of the work being done in the region to grow the biomedical corridor,” Sudow said in explaining Farm’s decision to locate in Cleveland. “Plainly speaking, they see customers here.”
Ohio healthcare companies certainly aren’t new to Farm. The company has worked with two of the state’s largest — helping Invacare Corp. develop a wheelchair and Cardinal Health develop a laparoscopic surgical device.
Harkins highlighted two reasons why Cleveland and the Clinic’s GCIC are a good fit for Farm. First, tenants at the incubator will typically be at the same stage as many of Farm’s clients — early stage companies that have venture backing and somewhat refined technology, but no product development team. Second, Farm does lots of work with cardiology-focused clients, and has built up expertise and experience in the field.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Farm was established in 1971, has 50 employees and two offices besides its new Cleveland location — both in New Hampshire.
Farm’s plan to establish a Cleveland office was first hatched in discussions with Cleveland Clinic officials at the hospital’s Medical Innovation Summit last fall, Harkins said.
The $19-million, 50,000-square-foot GCIC opened in April. The goal of the Ohio Third Frontier-backed incubator is to house and feed fledgling companies that are developing products and services to diagnose or treat cardiovascular disease.
