UMass Opens New Medical Device Incubator Program

The Uiversity of Massachusetts at Lowell (UMass Lowell) has opened business incubators aimed at growing startups in the medical device and technology industries.

The UMass Lowell Innovation Hub and the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2) business incubators encompass 22,000 square feet at 110 Canal in Lowell, and tenants have moved into both spaces. Three unnamed tenants currently are housed in each of the incubators to date, Steven Tello, UMass Lowell’s associate vice chancellor of entrepreneurship and economic development, told the Boston Business Journal.

This new space complements the existing medical device incubator at the Wannalancit Business Center, also in Lowell, which houses 15 medical-device startups to date.

“We expect in the coming months that additional tenants will move into both the Innovation Hub and new M2D2 space as the existing location has had a waiting list,” Tello told the publication.

The incubators are located at the former Freudenberg Nonwovens mill, which is one of several former mills being converted for commercial and residential use at the 15-acre site, according to a brief news release.

M2D2 is part of a wave of business incubators, accelerators, maker spaces and other shared sites that have emerged all over Massachusetts in recent years to boost corporate growth, jobs and economic development.

Business incubators typically offer small spaces and limited services to start-up companies too small or cash-strapped to rent or buy commercial real estate.

In Worcester, Mass., the private non-profit Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives operates three business incubators with a total of about 30,000 square feet of space and 35 labs for life science entrepreneurs. Researchers can rent labs as tiny as 200 square feet from MBI while also sharing access to purified water, freezers, centrifuges and other equipment.