Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1047182
NOVEMBER 2018 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 23 Las Marias: In our previous conversations with the indus- try, they were saying it is very important for the designers to work with the assemblers to make sure what they are doing is manufacturable. Fricbergs: Yes. We've had successes in our organiza- tion when we partner with our customers at the very early design stage, even at the conceptual stage, and we can help guide the customers from a manufacturability point of view so that we have fewer hiccups down the road. It's a fundamental tenet of our qual- ity system that proper quality planning leaves fewer mistakes and challenges downstream. Therefore, we encourage our customers to allow us to partner with them at the very earli- est stages of design, so that we can provide our input to give us the best opportunity for success when we reach the production stage. Dan Feinberg: Despina, your device sounds abso- lutely amazing. I can just see huge advantages not only for the industry but also for human- ity. I do have a question, though. I could envi- sion, thinking out of the technical realm, some significant pushback from the existing labora- tories who obviously could become obsolete. Just wondering if you've thought of this, and what your plans might be to deal with this. Are you considering the existing laboratories or the laboratory conglomerate companies, particularly in the United States, but probably in other places in the world, too, to be compe- tition or a partner? Or have you not gotten to that point yet? Moschou: We have. This has come up many times. When I started working on this tech- nology, it never crossed my mind that we would be competing with anyone. However, over the years as technology progressed and became a real thing, people kept asking this more and more. We have had several smaller research projects where we tried to find out the actual impact on the health-care systems if our devices were adopted. What we found out was that technicians working in hospitals in coun- tries like the U.K. would feel threatened by our devices. As people developing the technology, this had never crossed our minds because we always thought this technology would comple- ment current laboratories—not put other labs or the doctors and personnel using them out of business. The best example of that would be to imag- ine the pregnancy test. Before having the lateral flow test—the home-use test—people had to go to the doctor to verify that someone was pregnant. When the home pregnancy test was invented and adopted, it didn't mean that the people wouldn't go to the doctor. You still go and have the laboratory test to confirm; it enabled people to do something they were not able to do before. In our opinion, our technology enables things that were not possible before. The tech- nology complements central laboratories and removes some of the burden off them and central health-care systems. Feinberg: I can understand that. My first thought that came up as I listened to you was the economic and monetization portion of it. Have you considered partnering with the real, controlling influence in medicine today, which are the insurance companies? Moschou: Not yet. This is a good idea because it depends on the country that you work with. For example, while working here in the U.K., every- Figure 3: The complex design of the lab-on-a-chip.