While the primary goal of making the Cobra OS smaller was to improve safety, an unexpected benefit emerged. The device's smaller profile made it suitable for patients with smaller anatomies, such as women, opening a major new clinical application in postpartum hemorrhage.
The core innovation for the Cobra OS wasn't a complex discovery but the disciplined application of a known principle: miniaturizing endovascular devices always makes them safer. By focusing on shrinking the device, they inherently improved safety by reducing the size of the arterial access site.
While commercial conflicts of interest are heavily scrutinized, the pressure on academics to produce positive results to secure their next large institutional grant is often overlooked. This intense pressure to publish favorably creates a significant, less-acknowledged form of research bias.
Frontline Medical chose to develop the Cobra OS not because it was their most revolutionary concept, but because it was manufacturable with limited resources. They prioritized the idea that 'checked all the boxes' for feasibility, market success, and patient impact, ensuring they could bring a product to market.
Traditional academic promotion criteria, which prioritize publications, disincentivize clinicians from pursuing innovation. Dr. Power argues that for universities to truly support medical invention, they must update their standards to grant patents and industry consulting equivalent academic weight to research papers.
Institutional ownership of intellectual property can stifle a clinician's motivation to commercialize their idea. Dr. Adam Power advocates for an 'inventor-owned' IP model, arguing that no university department or tech transfer office will ever match the round-the-clock drive of the inventor themself.
Large medical device companies have rigid innovation cycles that may not align with a clinician's new idea. Dr. Adam Power discovered that to ensure his invention would actually reach patients, he had to commercialize it himself rather than waiting for a large company's timeline.