National Instruments Awards $1 Million to Advance Medical Device Development Since 2008

AUSTIN, Texas, March 8, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- National Instruments (Nasdaq: NATI) today announced that it has awarded $1 million USD in software, support and training to medical device manufacturers through its medical device grant program. Since the program began in 2008, 59 grant recipients from around the world have used technology such as the NI LabVIEW graphical system design platform to reduce the cost and complexity of medical device development and quickly create functional prototypes that help prove their inventions. National Instruments also announced that it is continuing the grant program in 2010 and accepting applications until June 30.

Many innovations in medical technology during the past 20 years have been developed by small, entrepreneurial companies. These start-up companies typically have miniscule budgets, fast time-to-market requirements and limited embedded system design experience. Additionally, they increasingly are asked to prove their technologies with functional prototypes in order to secure funding from investors.

The National Instruments Medical Device Grant program helps address these challenges by awarding up to $25,000 USD in software and services to start-ups that are evaluating NI hardware as a component of their medical device. The combination of LabVIEW and flexible, embedded hardware platforms such as NI CompactRIO delivers an ideal medical device development solution that makes it possible for companies to quickly experiment on their designs without the worry of low-level embedded programming.

Companies that have taken advantage of the medical device grant program include the following:

• Biorep Technologies – a company from Miami developing a perifusion system to assist in the isolation of cells in the pancreas for conducting diabetes research
• KNESTEL Technologie & Elektronik – a German company working on a rehabilitation robot for home use that retrains persons with neurological disturbances caused by spinal cord injury, stroke or traumatic brain injury to walk
• NuVue Therapeutics – a company from Fairfax, Virginia, working on an early diagnosis and cancer treatment method that uses an ultrasound-guided cyrothermal ablation method to deliver chemotherapy directly to the tumor
• Quantum Dental – a Toronto-based company developing The Canary System, a new approach to the early detection and treatment of tooth decay without the use of X-rays
• TecMed –a company from Albuquerque, New Mexico, that has completed a portable, fully functional prototype demonstrating the capabilities of its device design for monitoring a patient's blood glucose levels during open heart surgery to provide immediate ("therapeutic") feedback for the surgical team

Readers can visit www.ni.com/medicalgrant to learn more and apply for the medical device grant program.

Additional Resources on ni.com

View the Medical Device Webcast Series

Read a tutorial on FDA validation of medical devices with NI hardware and software

About National Instruments

National Instruments (www.ni.com) is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware, and sells to a broad base of more than 30,000 different companies worldwide, with no one customer representing more than 3 percent of revenue and no one industry representing more than 15 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 5,000 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the past 11 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. Readers can obtain investment information from the company's investor relations department by calling (512) 683-5090, e-mailing [email protected] or visiting www.ni.com/nati.

CompactRIO, LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

Editor Contact:  Hilary Marchbanks (512) 683-5937

SOURCE National Instruments