The City of Buffalo welcomed experts from the bioscience, pharmaceutical, and medical technology communities this week for the annual MedTech Conference. It’s an opportunity for them to harness the power of partnership and turn an eye towards the future.
Winthrop Thurlow still feels relatively new to the job of the MedTech Association’s executive director. He took up the position at the end of July, coming from a background in regulatory compliance at SUNY Upstate Medical University.
The switch to MedTech is giving him an opportunity to work in the intersection between the medical research and business. For Thurlow, attending this year’s MedTech Conference in downtown Buffalo is a first.
“It’s hard not to be impressed with the diversity of information and the diversity of interests that our members bring to this organization and to this area,” said Thurlow.
Topics like the role of big data in biotechnology and medicine were among many being discussed at the day and a half conference, with an overall theme of the power of partnership. It’s an opportunity for members to network and learn about the latest advances in their fields – ones that can be difficult to keep up with.
“Those changes continue at a pace that feels sometimes as if it’s too fast,” said Thurlow. “But it’s where we are and it’s where we need to be.”
2017 marked the return of MedTech to Buffalo for the second time. After its first visit only two years ago, Thurlow explained why his organization chose the Queen City as host again.
“You look at the growth at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, you look at the growth in this area as a result of the Buffalo Billions, and what you see is that cities beginning really in Rochester and working their way across the Niagara Frontier, into Buffalo and down into Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio are able to take advantage of some of these additional programs and leverage that into some growth,” Thurlow said.
The future of health care
On day one of the MedTech conference, four subject matter experts sat alongside each other in a conference room at the Hyatt Place hotel in Buffalo to talk about the future of health care.
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