The Tecnalia Ventures Entrepreneurs’ Club invited Lluís Chico, managing partner of NEOS Surgery, to give an OnlineTalk explaining how the company has successfully navigated the venture-building process, which aims to connect the three pillars that sustain technology transfer to market: technological capacities (minds), people with business profiles (management) and investors (money).
“NEOS Surgery was created in 2003 as a spin-off of the Eurecat and Tecnalia technology centres. We reinvented ourselves after a commercial failure and have struck a balance between minds and management,” noted Lluís Chico. “Without the support of Eurecat and Tecnalia, we wouldn’t be in the scale-up phase today, with recurring sales, although we still need to attract investment to continue moving forward with our R&D pipeline,” he recognised. From 16 to 19 November, the NEOS team will be at MEDICA 2020, the premier international medical-technology fair, presenting their innovative implants for neurosurgery, the spinal cord and cardiothoracic surgery.
Throughout this long-distance race of business, Chico noted, it is important to give spin-offs autonomy and confidence, managing the different interests of the partners.
“One of the things we’re doing well is identifying whether what we’re researching makes sense on the market and can be patented. Some ideas are technologically ground breaking but don’t fit with customers,” Lluís Chico said.
The talk was moderated by Germán Lasa, head of Marketing and Communication at Tecnalia Ventures.
You can watch the OnlineTalk again here.
