BIRMINGHAM, UK — China is not the magic solution — so now what?

Medical device product developers may be bringing their projects back to Britain, according to executives gathered at MedTec UK 2008, held here last week, but these projects are still struggling to get off the drawing boards.

“There are a lot of frustrated people walking around here and they have been looking for a while,” said Ross Fraser of Carville (Dorking, UK). “They engineered a novel idea, but now they need to produce it at low cost,” he said.

“Some of these projects have a level of complexity that prices out at $10 per unit and simply cannot be achieved at the $1 per unit they need to deliver,” he said. “They went to China and six months later they come back saying the Chinese cannot deliver.”

Showing six requests on the first day of the MedTec UK event, he said, “Today I’ve talked about turbirdity, fluids run through a device using scatter photonics, talked about assays for lab-on-chip with microfluidcis, and one to detect “airborne nasties for homeland security. But they are all targeting $2 a unit.”

Tony Davis, chief executive for Medilink West Midlands, agreed, saying “getting from eight pounds to 80 pence a unit is a problem, and no one is going to square that circle.”

“They tried China, and that didn’t work,” he said, “That’s why these engineers are still walking around with a product idea, looking for a magic solution.”

Event organizer Mark Temple-Smith of Canon Communications (Los Angeles), said, “It seemed on every flight to Asia, I was sitting next to a British engineer moving a plant to China. Now on my return flights I find myself next to a Brit bringing the factory back.”

“Having exhausted the hope of lower cost labor, they are now looking hard at automation,” he said. “Robotics are key to Western production for the cost efficiency, but with an assurance of the quality.”

Birmingham, like Stuttgart, is a major automotive center that has seen a migration of its manufacturing toward medical technologies in recent years to offset the volatility in what one executive described as a battered auto industry.

Though only slightly larger than the UK, Germany moved earlier and faster, today earning three times the revenue in med-tech as British manufacturers at €35 billion ($52 billion) vs. £6.5 ($13.5 billion).

“Like anyone in metal-bashing, we were automotive-dominated,” admits Timothy Jones, manager of business development with Clamson Industries (Kingswinford, UK), who said automotive now represents just 25% of the company’s revenues.

“It has been a sea change, but it may be changing again” he said, “The medical industry doesn’t ignore the costs, but they have been much more product-oriented.”

Now, he says, the National Health Service (NHS) “is driving healthcare to be more like an automotive company, rather than a hospital system.”

Davis of the West Midlands manufacturers’ association was more blunt about the changed market for UK medical devices.

“If a member with a new product has a choice between a two-day session on NHS procurement and buying a plane ticket to sell in another market, I’d give him the plane ticket,” he said.

Stephen Knowles, managing director for the IDC design consultancy in Berkshire, is enjoying vigorous 40% of business coming from medical devices.

IDC was displaying several new devices that fit the generalization that, compared to Germany with deeply-rooted local ownership, UK med-tech is driven by globetrotting multinational companies that do not hesitate to send manufacturing offshore.

One new device was an insulin pen designed for the Indian market in both a disposable and reusable version.

The insulin makers Wockhardt (Mumbai, India) found a redesign to be more cost-effective than paying prohibitive licenses for existing designs.

“There are bigger names in industrial design,” said the head of IDC, “but we are the better value.”

The pens were tooled in Taiwan, he said, and the final production is located in the Gujarat province of India.

For the UK representative of Venner Trading (Singapore and Jersey), IDC produced a control unit fitted to an inflatable cuff for Venner’s LMA LoTrach endotracheal and tracheostomy tubes that adjusts pressure as a patient moves and assures fluids are sealed off from the trachea.

The manufacturing for the bedside control unit was originally awarded to a German company, but was then moved to Switzerland. Components are sourced from around the world.

For Medick Healthcare (Milton Keynes, UK), the design company developed what it called the first personal electrocardiogram monitor with a level of depth and insight similar to professional devices produced for an increasingly technology-savvy and health-aware generation.

Tooling once again went to Taiwan again, but, in a win for the home team, the product is manufactured in Southampton.