A survey of success factors in New Product Development in the medical devices industry

This study of the factors that are correlated with success in new product development (NPD) is based on 68 responses to a survey of medical device companies in the UK and Ireland. It was found that the degree of technological innovation, the involvement of end users in the development process, the dissemination of NPD priorities to staff, and the use of financial analysis throughout the development process were all correlated with success in a statistically significant manner. These findings demonstrate the importance of innovation, integration and the use of financial metrics to sustained product development success. In addition, this survey found that new-to-the world innovations made up only 4.4% of NPD projects in larger companies and 9.3% of NPD projects in small and medium sized enterprises.