Cancer drug developer Southern Research Institute  and the University of Alabama at Birmingham have formed a strategic partnership known as the Alliance for Innovative Medical Technology (AIMTech) to develop new medical devices, the two groups said Tuesday.

The collaboration will combine SRI’s research and discovery expertise and scientists with UAB’s biomedical engineers and clinicians. Together they will look to develop medical devices that focus on cardiology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, rehabilitation engineering and trauma, the groups said.
AIMTech hopes to have its first devices hit the market by 2020.

Art Tipton, president and CEO of SRI, said the partnership will allow them to accelerate commercialization of medical technologies and potentially create new companies and jobs within the biomedical engineering industry.

AIMTech will invent the new devices, raise venture capital, establish small medical device companies, and manage the clinical trial and FDA approval processes, it said. Major medical device companies will manufacture and sell the devices, and AIMTech will receive licensing, royalty fees, equity arrangements and research grants, it added.

Tipton hired Robert Hergenrother to lead the alliance. He has led the creation of 15 medical devices during his career, working for such companies as Target Therapeutics and Stryker. — Kellen Owings

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