By GREGORY ZELLER //
Award-winning product design firms from Long Island and Minnesota are synchronizing their efforts in the red-hot med-tech space.
Hauppauge-based Intelligent Product Solutions and Coon Rapids-based Kablooe Design have launched a new, comprehensive medical-device development service – a soup-to-nuts collaboration leveraging decades of design and engineering expertise for the benefit of med-tech innovators with new worlds to conquer.
Both IPS and Kablooe are subsidiaries of Forward Industries, which moved its corporate headquarters from Florida to Hauppauge last year. Both are ground-up product-development aces. But Kablooe has a particular talent for medical devices – its hometown Twin Cities region ranks among the nation’s leading med-tech hubs – while IPS specializes in Internet of Things connectivity.
Together, the two master makers boast complementary experiences and skills ideally suited to the design, development and commercialization of next-generation medical technologies, according to IPS President Mitch Maiman.
“Our combined expertise is unmatched in the industry and enables us to deliver the best-in-class medical-device design services,” Maiman said, noting the sister subsidiary’s location “in the heartland of medical-device development” as a key advantage.
“Kablooe has a strong reputation, expertise and track record in medical-device design,” Maiman added. “We are thrilled to join with them to deliver this complete medical-device design service.”
Founded in 2008, Kablooe has carved a noticeable med-tech niche. Among other success stories, the company – acquired by Forward Industries in 2020 for $1.6 million – played a key role in the design and development of Minnesota-based NxThera’s RezumR surgical system, which led to NxThera’s $400 million acquisition by Boston Scientific in 2018.
A Forward Industries subsidiary since 2018, IPS – which briefly operated a Minneapolis office between 2016 and 2017 – is no med-tech lightweight, either. The Hauppauge firm works closely, and often, with Long Island’s thriving medical research community; in 2016, IPS snagged a prestigious international Good Design Award for its IoT-enabled AdhereTech Smart Pill Bottle, a wireless wonder that dispenses medication while digitally linking patients, practitioners and pharmacists.
Tom Kramer: Potent partner.
The two subsidiaries form a potent combination, according to Kablooe CEO Tom Kramer, who trumpeted “extensive design and engineering service offerings” through the new Forward Industries med-tech division.
“Clients are assured of an expert team from start to finish,” Kramer added. “We are agile, user-centric and flexible enough to always adapt our services to the needs of our clients, whether it is invention, feasibility, proof of concept or design for production manufacturing.
“We now have the power to do it all.”
Integrating the “first-rate competencies” of the Long Island and Minnesota subsidiaries into a frontline division underscores Forward Industries’ entire acquisitions strategy, according to Forward CEO and Chairman Terry Wise.
“Forward’s ability to provide excellence in medical-device design and engineering, a fast-growing sector, clearly positions the company for continued growth,” Wise said in a statement.
