January 25, 2018 -- Innovation can change the world, and Medtronic is a global leader when it comes to innovative thinking, according to a new report released today.

For the fourth straight year, Medtronic has been named one of the world’s most innovative companies by Clarivate Analytics. The Clarivate Analytics 2017 Top 100 Global Innovator award honors companies based on the volume, success, protection and influence of their patents. Learn more about intellectual property at Medtronic.

“Meaningful innovation in our therapies, products and systems is critical to providing the best care possible for patients,” said Omar Ishrak, chairman and chief executive officer of Medtronic. “We remain committed to research and development that can produce new devices, products and services that improve clinical outcomes, expand access to care and optimize cost and efficiency to better meet the needs of patients all over the world."

Medtronic, which has been granted more than 53,000 patents in its history, invested $2.2 billion in R&D in FY2017, which represented 7.4 percent of net sales. Learn more.

The Medtronic Applied Innovation Lab is just one example of that commitment. Launched in 2015, the Lab, located in Minnesota, is a unique collaboration space, where teams of Medtronic employees, customers, healthcare providers and other partners work on solving healthcare challenges. The company’s Healthcare Innovation team relies on user-centered approaches such as design thinking, where they immerse project teams in the patient or customer experience to understand not just their healthcare need, but how that need fits into their everyday lives. Learn more about the Medtronic commitment to meaningful innovation. 

Last year, more than 70 million people – two every second – benefitted from Medtronic technologies.

The Top 100 Global Innovator award is based on four patent-related criteria: overall patent volume, patent application-to-grant success rate, global reach of the portfolio, and patent influence as evidenced by citations. Read the full report.

Clarivate Analytics crunches that data to identify the companies that are most successful at developing new inventions, protecting them from infringers and using these innovations to drive revenues.

The organizations in the 2017 Top 100 represent three continents and 11 different markets, with major innovation hubs Japan and the USA accounting for 75 percent of the list. Eighty-five of the 2017 Top 100 Global Innovators also appeared on the 2016 list, and six are new to the report. See the full list.