which have a shelf life of only five days, make up less than 5 percent of the overall donor base. It’s therefore vital that blood centers retain dedicated donors, said Michelle Marks, Director of Global Product Marketing for Lakewood, Colorado-based Terumo BCT, Inc., whose port- folio of products includes automated blood col- lection systems. “Repeat donation is extremely important,” she said. “We wouldn’t be able to provide a lot of blood products without donors.” Enter Terumo BCT’s Trima Accel®, which handles roughlyhalfofallapheresisdonationsworldwide, according to Christine Romero, corporate com- municationsspecialistforTerumoBCT.Thecompa- ny’snext-generationversion,TrimaAccel7®,slated for release in the United States later this year, will include software and hardware improvements that aim to make blood collection more efficient and inviting for donors. Terumo BCT centers its design philosophy on the Japanese concept of “gemba,” roughly trans- lated as “the real place,” said the company’s Vice Lakewood-based Terumo BCT’s Trima Accel®, an apheresis system designed to improve efficiency and donor comfort. President of New Product Ideation, Tom Felt. During product development, engineering and business design specialists routinely visit cus- tomers and play the “fly on the wall,” as he put it, to understand their needs. FeedbackfrombloodcentershelpedTerumoBCT tweaktheTrimaAccel7.DuringtestinginAsia,for example, donors and techs told developers that an earlier version of the system better suited the larger veins of Western donors than their coun- terparts in Japan and China. The machine pulled blood too quickly from Asian donors, triggering machine alarms and donor consternation. “That was a big ʻeureka,’” Felt said. An added fea- ture now allows technicians to customize blood flow based on each donor’s height, weight and vein access, reducing the number of alarms by half. Another fix shortened the machine reset time between donors – a key improvement in busy centers. Zimmer Biomet, whose Spine Division headquar- ters in Westminster, Colorado, also improved its biomedical technology by listening to patient concerns. The company’s FDA-approved Mobi-C® Cervical Disc is an alternative to anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) to treat degener- ation of the rubbery discs that cushion verte- brae in the upper and lower spine. When discs Abby Wright gets cancer patients access to cutting- edge diagnostic tests AbbyWright,SeniorDirector of Reimbursement at Biodesix, Inc., finds her job—negotiating with health plans to get the company’s tests covered— highly meaningful. “My work makes our tests available to lung cancer patients who need them,” Wright says. “That can get them on the right treatment much faster than would otherwise be possible or spare them unnecessary worry. I can’t imagine a more rewarding career.” Biodesix offers three innovative, rapid blood- based tests that identify actionable lung tumor mutations, measure the immune response to lung tumors, and distinguish benign from potentially cancerous lung nodules, respectively. “We present clinical data to Medicaid, Medicare, and major insurers showing that Biodesix’s tests improve outcomes and reduce the overall cost of care,” says Wright. “That can be really challenging because the treatment landscape and standards are always changing.” In Wright’s six and a half years at Biodesix, she’s led the team that secured coverage for VeriStrat®, the proteomic immune response test, and oversaw the three-year planning and execution of bringing billing in-house, including the research to show that it would improve revenue. She credits her success to a combination of her initiative—taking every opportunity to learn and contribute—and great men- tors, both within the company and in the Colorado bioscience community. “Biodesix’s involvement with CBSA has opened a lot of doors,” says Wright. “Through Colorado BioScience Institute’s Executive Leadership Program, I was assigned a mentor who has founded and run multiple biotech companies, and he and the program director have provided really insightful, constructive advice.” 15 2019-2020 / / BIOSCIENCECOLORADO