Texas Children's Hospital receives portion of FDA grant for Pediatric Medical Device Consortium

HOUSTON, Oct. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) are part of a consortium that has received a five-year, $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to improve the pipeline for the development of pediatric medical devices.

The project, funded with the award from the FDA's Office of Orphan Products Development, will be led by Southern California Center of Technology and Innovation in Pediatrics (CTIP), a consortium established at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California (USC) and involves collaboration with six pediatric medical device consortia across the nation to develop strategies for improving the pediatric medical device pipeline and for overcoming obstacles to successful pediatric device development.

"There is a shortage of available devices created specifically for the pediatric population," said Dr. Chester Koh, director of the Pediatric Robotic Surgery Program at Texas Children's Hospital and associate professor of pediatric urology at Baylor College of Medicine, as well as the principal investigator for the first year of the grant.

Development of pediatric medical devices currently lags behind the development of devices for adults. Children differ from adults in terms of their size, growth, development, body chemistry, and disease propensity, which adds to the challenges of device development for children and adolescents.

"Pediatric hospitals across the nation are faced with the same dilemma, where clinicians are using adult devices for the needs of children. The consortium will help us fill the gap by encouraging the development of original devices for the pediatric population, as well as adapting adult devices for pediatric use," adds Koh.

The goal of this Pediatric Device Consortium is to bring together individuals and institutions both in Texas and California to support pediatric medical device development through all of the necessary stages —concept formation, prototyping, preclinical, clinical, manufacturing, marketing, and commercialization.

"Participation in this consortium brings together the brightest minds in pediatrics, giving us a path to develop new devices and potentially bring them to market," says James Hury, director of financial services at Texas Children's Hospital.

Along with Texas Children's Hospital and Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the following centers have also been noted as grantees:

• University of Michigan Pediatric Device Consortium
• Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium – Georgia Tech/Virginia Commonwealth University
• National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation – Children's National Medical Center
• New England Pediatric Device Consortium – Boston Children's
• Philadelphia Regional Pediatric Medical Device Consortium – Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
• Boston Pediatric Device Consortium – Boston Children's.

About Texas Children's Hospital

Texas Children's Hospital, a not-for-profit organization, is committed to creating a community of healthy children through excellence in patient care, education and research. Consistently ranked among the top children's hospitals in the nation, Texas Children's has recognized Centers of Excellence in multiple pediatric subspecialties including the Cancer and Heart Centers, and operates the largest primary pediatric care network in the country. Texas Children's has completed a $1.5 billion expansion, which includes the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute; Texas Children's Pavilion for Women, a comprehensive obstetrics/gynecology facility focusing on high-risk births; and Texas Children's Hospital West Campus, a community hospital in suburban West Houston.  For more information on Texas Children's, go to www.texaschildrens.org. Get the latest news from Texas Children's by visiting the online newsroom and on Twitter at twitter.com/texaschildrens.

Contact:
Elizabeth Shackouls
Texas Children's Hospital
832-824-2108
[email protected]

SOURCE Texas Children's Hospital