Episode 97 -- Dr Maryam Parviz from SDIP Innovations

@AuManufacturing Conversations

In this episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations, Dr Maryam Parviz from bone filler business SDIP Innovations tells us about why better bone implants are needed, the company's road to commercialisation, why the company decided in-house production was the only way after considering contract manufacture, and more.

This episode is sponsored by ECI Software Solutions.

Episode guide

0:26 – What SDIP does – next-generation bioresobable bone implants – and Parviz’s professional background.

2:25 – Development of the implants by the company’s co-founder as an answer to repeat surgeries.

3:30 – The scholarship from NSW Health in partnership with QB3 incubator and the UCSF Rosenman incubator.

4:32 – What Jazbi is and does.

5:40 – 60 per cent of surgeons use bone from another part of the patient’s body, or from cadavers.

7:20 – Their product versus ceramics, which Parvis says are brittle rather than shapeable. Bone fillers created in granule, wedge and rod shape plus fillers (with rod-shaped cartridges) used in a delivery device.

9:26 – What it’s made of and how it’s made.

10:55 – The path to clinical acceptance. Hopefully in a patient next year.

12:40 – The business model.

15:01 – What lure might’ve been attached to staying in the Bay Area and not returning to Sydney to establish the business and its products.

19:07 – Establishing the factory in Hornsby.

22:30 – Manufacturing process development while in the Bay Area and the value of this.

23:50 – Why the fundraising environment for medical device companies in Australia isn’t as mature as it could be, and what this means for new companies.

28:10 – The art of innovation in manufacturing and at SDIP.

30:20 – First sales will be in the US market.

31:15 – The skillsets involved, talent attraction at SDIP, and the challenging nature of this.