About the CLIP

The CLIP is a unique incubator in the heart of the Montreal General Hospital. We support innovative solutions to unmet clinical needs and accelerate their adoption into the market and healthcare system. We do this by facilitating access to clinical facilities, expertise, and research labs so companies can validate technologies in a real-care setting. With close proximity to clinics, operating rooms, laboratories and pre-clinical facilities, it allows members to network and take full advantage of the resources in the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). The CLIP provides innovative HealthTech companies a dynamic environment offering modern co-creation spaces, collaborative working areas, meeting rooms and laboratory space. Services through the CLIP include human factor and usability testing with hospital stakeholders, clinical consultation, 3D printing and regulatory consultation. With generous support from the Montreal General Foundation, National Bank and the Birks Family Foundation the CLIP offers seed investment for select start-ups.

Business incubators and accelerators often have the specific focus of training innovators to become entrepreneurs but are ill-adapted for specific challenges in MedTech. The CLIP is tailored to specifically aid the development, commercialization and growth of MedTech companies. The CLIP provides a space where members can refine and test their prototypes, achieve regulatory milestones and build their business while an environment their intended product will be used in. This unique advantage will aid start-ups in achieving key opinion leader (KOL) validation, product testing, regulatory approval and even clinical trials – all necessary steps to bring technology to market.

The broad vision of the CLIP is to be a nexus of a new hospital-based innovation ecosystem and the centre of excellence for clinical validation and MedTech innovation in Montreal. There is a large gap in the MedTech market place – support for clinical validation. The CLIP’s centralized office will act as the connection point between external companies and the clinical, scientific and professional resources of the MUHC. This concept can be scaled to not only emerging companies, but large established enterprises which can benefit from streamlined clinical validation from an centralized office.

Since September 2016 the Department of Surgery initiated the ‘Innovation at the Cutting Edge” NSERC CREATE graduate training program. This program brings together business, engineering, and medical students from McGill, Concordia, ETS & UdeM to solve unmet needs and to create start-ups. Indeed, the concept behind the CLIP was born out of the success of this Master program and the CLIP will act as the home to this graduate training program administered by McGill’s Division of Experimental Surgery.

This program has been wildly successful but has highlighted a gap in the Montreal start-up ecosystem that the CLIP will fill. While there are many incubators and accelerators which helps start-ups develop their business, there is no for support for companies to achieve regulatory and clinical validation of technology. The CLIP solves that gap in the marketplace and provides a physical space where MedTech companies can flourish and achieve clinical validation. With the Master’s Degree and CLIP’s focus on complex clinical care, research, and education, buttressed by the state-of-the-art living lab facilities and clinical experts makes for a fertile Innovation ecosystem.

Inspired by Dr. Raymond Hakim, the CLIC funds groups from the McGill Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences that are developing promising ideas that will have a direct and positive impact on Canadian or global health care. This competition is very competitive and selects the best teams or companies throughout the McGill community. As apart of their prize, CLIC winners gain entrance to the CLIP to aid in the development and validation of technology. As such, the CLIC serves as an entrance and application mechanism that occurs on an annual basis.

The Research Institute of the McGill university Health Centre (RI-MUHC) is the research arm of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. The RI-MUHC was built to facilitate investigator-initiated and discovery-driven research that creates new knowledge in healthcare research.

Clinical Innovation Platform is a special platform under direct administration from the RI-MUHC. This is a strategic advantage for the RI-MUHC as Incubators and accelerators have now become central to the successful technology transfer and commercialization. As opposed to licensing out medical technology and IP to large multinationals, where control of the innovation is completely removed from the inventors, researchers are keeping a hand on their work and forming start-up companies. The CLIP will be an important part of the business development and commercialization strategy of the RI-MUHC’s investigator and clinician led start-ups.

The CLIP is physically situated in the Montreal General Hospital (MGH), taking up an entire wing on the 9th floor. The CLIP is affiliated with the Department of Surgery at McGill and the MUHC which has many of its clinics and ORs in the MGH. It is a multi-specialty department with the full range of tertiary and quaternary clinical and academic services, including General Surgery, Thoracic, Cardiovascular, Orthopedics, Urology, Plastic Surgery, Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and the Division of Experimental Surgery. The Trauma program, based at the MGH, has the lowest mortality outcomes in Canada and is owner of a sophisticated database that has patient data that encompasses over 250 fields.

The CLIP construction was funded with support from the Montreal General Hospital Foundation and from the Strategic Innovation Fund.

Current operations are funded from several generous donors which include: National Bank, the Montreal General Hospital Foundation, MEDTEQ+ and the Birks Family Foundation.

Click “Apply” on the top right of the website and fill out an application.

After the application is submitted, they are reviewed on a consistent basis with our review committee. The most promising applications are contacted and invited for a short pitch and to learn more about their needs. After this interview there is one final selection round and the most promising start-ups with a good fit with the CLIP are selected for membership.

There is an opportunity for funding via several mechanisms.

First, The Clinical Innovation Competition, which is an annual competition for McGill students, alumni, professors and staff. It funds promising ideas that will have a direct and positive impact on Canadian or global health care There are four prizes on offer: Hakim Family Innovation Prize; Marika Zelenka Roy Innovation Prize; MI4 Innovation Prize; Bereskin & Parr Innovation Prize Second, National Bank Innovation Award, which is managed by the Montreal General Hospital Foundation. It provides an up to $50,000 interest-free forgivable convertible equity loan for promising start-ups and is intended to be leveraged for further funding.

Third, there are exclusive funding opportunities for CLIP members with other funding agencies. The CLIP staff can advise you on what opportunities to apply for and how to leverage existing or upcoming funds the best.

Yes, there are several models depending on the needs of each company. Note, there are several funding opportunities which can be applied to which cover the cost of membership.

MEDTEQ+ Beachhead™ is a partnership between a center of clinical excellence and companies to accelerate the adoption of value-based innovations. This collaborative adoption includes a real-time evaluation of collaborative care between patients, researchers, clinicians, health administrators, governments and industry, using a clear and accelerated process. MEDTEQ is a key partner with a direct and unrivaled connection with the Quebec MedTech network.

MEDTEQ+, being the Quebec consortium for Medical Technologies, they act as pulling force for the CLIP and connects us with companies that require Clinical Validation. The intention of the Beachhead™ program is to engage in the hospital in the acquisition and use of the technology once validated and it receives full regulatory approval.

Finally, the Beachhead™ centers form a network that shares evaluation processes, best certified technologies within the network, and best training practices to improve technology implementation while increasing each participant’s visibility.

No, the CLIP does not take any equity or intellectual property from its members.