MedTech Centre of Research Excellence opened in Auckland

The MedTech Centre of Research Excellence, based at the University of Auckland, has been officially opened this afternoon by Minister of Tertiary Education Skills and Employment Steven Joyce.

New Zealand's medical devices and health IT industries are an emerging sector of around 150 companies with an estimated value of $1 billion.

"The growth of this industry can be accelerated with the help of innovation, research and above all, collaboration," Mr Joyce says.  "Med Tech will develop technologies for prevention, early diagnosis and management of disease. This research centre will contribute to the health and wellbeing of all New Zealanders."

In 2014 the partners in the Consortium for Medical Device Technologies successfully applied to the Tertiary Education Commission for funding to establish the MedTech CoRE, hosted by the University of Auckland. MedTech has been allocated total CoREs funding of $23.6 million to the end of 2020.

The MedTech CoRE is supported by a partnership that includes Auckland University of Technology, Callaghan Innovation, the Universities of Auckland, Canterbury and Otago, and Victoria University of Wellington.

The MedTech CoRE brings together the roles of both clinicians and industry in developing health technologies.  It has an emphasis on working in partnership to be a world class innovation environment, focused on areas where New Zealand can become world leading.

"By bringing together and developing a pool of talented academics and graduate scientists, the MedTech CoRE will help New Zealand's MedTech sector continue to grow and contribute to the New Zealand economy," Mr Joyce says.  "In New Zealand and globally, we need affordable technologies with tested and measured health outcomes. The work done at MedTech CoRE will help make this happen more quickly."