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Stepping into the future Parker Hannifin develops ‘technology incubator’ to foster innovative concepts By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com
Big companies have a reputation for killing big ideas. So think of Parker Hannifin’s new technology incubator as a fortress: A place designed to protect ideas that could become revolutionary products. Products like the Indego exoskeleton. Parker Hannifin’s Indego team — which is helping paralyzed research subjects walk again — has become the first tenant of the incubator, which is now home to the company’s Corporate Technology Ventures initiative. The initiative is designed to help Parker, a 100-year-old industrial company, innovate more like a
startup, according to Craig Maxwell, chief technology and innovation officer. Startups often are better at coming up with big, groundbreaking ideas. Major corporations, including Parker Hannifin, tend to develop products that are “more evolutionary than revolutionary,” Maxwell said. But that’s not good enough, if Parker plans to compete with those startups. “What do we have to do to make sure we’re relevant 100 years from now?” he said. Thus, Parker is hunting for big ideas, regardless of whether they come from Parker employees, universities or other companies. The Indego exoskeleton is the first of those ideas to take physical shape. Parker licensed the technology from Vanderbilt University in 2012, and it began testing a
new version of Indego in clinical trials this summer. The company believes it will hit the U.S. and European markets next year, assuming it wins regulatory approval in each market. At the end of August, the 19 people who make up Parker’s Human Motion & Control team set up shop in a 5,200-squarefoot lab inside the Corporate Technology Ventures incubator — a 27,000-squarefoot building in Macedonia.
Up to the challenge Michael Gore, who lost the use of his legs in a car crash several years ago, visited the lab last week to show how the product works. From his wheelchair, Gore leaned forSee PARKER, page17
Medicaid issue will land in 2015 By TIMOTHY MAGAW tmagaw@crain.com
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MetroHealth’s top lobbyist, John Corlett, has sat down with plenty of state lawmakers and candidates over the last few months, but he says not a single one has broached the topic of Medicaid expansion — perhaps the health system’s most important legislative issue — without him or his staff raising it first. It’s a bit surprising considering the heated battle last year in the Legislature that pitted Republican Gov. John Kasich against the most conservative members of his own party in his quest to expand the governmentfunded health care program to cover more low-income Ohioans earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Ultimately, expecting that lawmakers would block his efforts, the governor sought and gained approval from the state Controlling Board to use more than $2.5 billion in federal funds to pay for the expansion. A lawsuit challenging Kasich’s maneuver fizzled, and
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the Tea Party-led chorus railing against the expansion, which was made possible by President Obama’s controversial health care overhaul, has faded. However, local hospitals say reauthorizing the expansion in next year’s state budget negotiations is anything but a sure bet, and they’re gearing up for a fight. And if expansion unwinds due to lawmaker inaction, Corlett and others say the result could be “catastrophic.” “There are still honest disagreements about the role of government when it comes to providing health care,” said Corlett, MetroHealth’s vice president of government relations and community affairs and a former director of the state Medicaid program. “I think those divisions are still there.” Since taking hold at the start of the year, 367,395 Ohioans have enrolled in the program under the expanded parameters, including more than 56,000 in Cuyahoga County, according to the most recent data provided by the Ohio Department of Medicaid. And if
THE AUGUST ACE REPORT
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