It is an honor to participate, on behalf of the Alliance of U.S. Startups and Inventors (USIJ) for Jobs and the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA), in this important hearing today focused on specific steps that we can take to strengthen and improve the U.S. patent system. My name is Eb Bright and I am the President of ExploraMed. ExploraMed is a venture-backed medical device incubator, based in Silicon Valley, that focuses on identifying, creating and developing novel solutions for unmet health needs of patients around the world.

We have launched 8 companies that are improving the quality of life for patients in areas such as chronic sinusitis (which impacts over 35 million Americans a year) and osteoarthritis. We have also pioneered new approaches to urological surgery. Collectively, the companies we have built have received approximately $680 million in venture funding and have created over 900 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs. We have also received over 350 U.S. patents for our inventions and I’ve had the honor to be named as an inventor on 16 of them.