“By one estimate, biologically-inspired innovations could contribute $425 billion to the country's gross domestic product by 2030.” This is according to coverage on the Sunday Morning show, CBS News, highlighting the innovation and financial value of Biomimicry. As the basis for Medtextra I have of course been convinced of its great potential for some time now! But as interest gains momentum here is my take on why this is happening now in the world of textiles and some of the issues to seeing more examples of it.
Velcro has been the poster child for Biomimicry for decades now and of course it makes an appearance in the CBS show. It's a great innovation, really smart, works well and it’s probably difficult to find someone in the world that has never used it at some point in their life. Its very greatness I feel also creates a really high benchmark for other innovations to follow. So what we have seen are tons of great ideas but relatively little product hit the marketplace. In my view, there is such a huge rush to get the next big thing to market that it is easy to overlook the fact that it takes time to develop, time to refine, time to produce, time to scale up, time to get the right partners in place……. well you get the idea! At Medtextra we have been taking time to really talk with people, explaining the principles of hygroscopy and our belief that it can bring not just innovation but real benefit to people’s lives in the smart delivery of active ingredients to the body. Having the idea is just the first step, forging the right partnerships is what can really make it happen.
Managing expectation is important, and though a stand-alone product like Velcro (again!) is the ideal, the reality is that Biomimicry in order to reach product and the consumer very often has to make alliances. We don’t expect a ‘Lycra’ fabric to be 100% Lycra after all, and yet there seems to be an unspoken assumption that a Biomimicry fabric is 100% Biomimicry. Like with Medtextra. Less than 10% is needed in the yarn and the other 90%, well we are still exploring the many possibilities that brands have come to us with and that’s pretty exciting and challenging – but then I do like a challenge!
There are a lot of great ideas for Biomimicry that could bring real benefit to people’s lives some of them showcased on the CBS show. It would be a shame to see unrealistic expectations hold them back from reaching full commercialisation.