Biomedical

Summit County is a Leader in Biomaterials and Medical Research.

Summit County is the center of Northeast Ohio's health care and bioscience region, which employs more than 230,000 workers, and is home to several health care systems, including the globally-renowned Cleveland Clinic which is ranked the second best hospital in the United States (U.S. News).

Capitalizing on our strengths in polymers, manufacturing and innovation, Summit County has become a leader in the biomedical fields of orthopedics, wound care, medical devices, medical IT, and imaging. The abundance of health care institutions in Summit County make it an ideal environment for fast and effective clinical trials, market testing, and advanced purchasing.

Among the companies working on state-of-the art medical devices and instruments is the Theken Companies located in Akron, Ohio. Randy Theken is the founder of Theken Companies. He was born and raised in Northeast Ohio where he began four orthopedic medical device companies, known as the Theken Family of Companies. Theken sold his successful spine businesses to Integra in 2008 and has now started NextStep Arthropedix and NextStep Extremities which are focused on the design and development of orthopedic joint and extremity implants. Taking advantage of the latest technologies, NextStep is dissecting every aspect of the design, manufacturing, and surgical processes to create revolutionary products surrounded by a foundation of support for both the surgeon and the patient. In an industry where innovation has been achieved through small steps, NextStep strives to make giant leaps. NextStep Arthropedix's orthopedic implants, instruments and packaging are made in the USA and within five years their founder wants to claim they are the largest medical device manufacturer producing implant devices, using 3D printing technology.

Hitachi Healthcare Americas, located in Summit County, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Medical Corporation. It offers a broad range of diagnostic imaging equipment including MRI and CT. Hitachi's innovations in diagnostic imaging provide technology that drives clinical solutions to deliver diagnostic confidence, improve workflow efficiency and provide a better patient experience. In addition to exceptional equipment, Hitachi Healthcare Americas is known for its comprehensive customer support programs to maximize the lifecycle value of equipment through responsive service maintenance, significant software upgrades and on-going applications support.

ForTec Medical, located in Summit County, mobilizes surgical technologies including the broadest array of lasers to hospitals, surgery centers, and physician offices on an as-needed basis. Physicians enjoy the latest generation of surgical technologies, delivered and operated by trained ForTec technicians. Hospitals and health care professionals enjoy ForTec's pay-per-use model, which avoids costly capital investments, technology obsolescence risk and staffing headaches. The ForTec team delivers distinctive service for improving health and health care.

Through its OneSourceTM program, ForTec partners with a hospital system to provide dedicated on-call services across a complete range of surgical specialties. OneSource aims to maximize utilization of costly surgical assets, efficiently mobilizing them across the system and effectively providing case coverage with dedicated technicians. Their service center network extends coast-to-coast across the U.S.

Not only do we have advanced biomedical companies, our local universities, particularly the University of Akron and Northeast Ohio Medical University, provide experienced biomedical research and development expertise. Summit County is also home to a high concentration of medical businesses- a cluster of hospital systems, biomedical businesses, and educational, research and development institutions centered in and around downtown Akron.

Our renowned health care systems including, Cleveland Clinic Akron General, Summa Health System, and Akron Children's Hospital serve as the anchor institutions within the Biomedical Corridor, where over 20,000 biomedical professionals, researchers, scientists, lab assistants, and medical technicians work every day. These three hospital systems host more than 65,000 patient admissions and 1.5 million outpatient visits annually.