Scottsdale, AZ (Jan. 16, 2025) — A bold new chapter in regenerative medicine, biologics and advanced med device manufacturing begins today as Netherlands-based Hummingbird Biomedical, in partnership with DEMCON Life Sciences, officially opens its U.S. headquarters and advanced manufacturing lab, joining other organizations located on the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale campus, a leading destination for complex care.

This state-of-the-art global scale-up venture studio and Hummingbird landing lab positions Scottsdale at the heart of next-generation health innovation. Designed as a soft-landing and scale-up gateway for high-potential life sciences ventures from Europe and Asia, the facility offers a fast-track into the U.S. market. Startups that graduate from the lab will accelerate their journey from concept to commercialization.

“Hummingbird accelerates the expansion of breakthrough therapies through its hub-and-spoke venture-scaling platform, connecting startups with scalable manufacturing, clinical assets, market-entry pathways and funding,” said Hummingbird Biomedical founder and CEO Dr. Marianne van der Steen. “By bridging the gap between lab innovation and real-world healthcare adoption, companies move faster from concept to global impact — while bringing life-changing technologies to patients faster.”

Hummingbird Biomedical: Accelerating Breakthrough Therapies

Together with DEMCON, the global Scale-Up Venture Studio & Hummingbird Lab deliver a powerful combination of:

• Advanced bioengineering
• Medical device development
• Automation & early GMP alignment
• Strategic capital access through global partnerships

These offerings through the Hummingbird Biomedical lab will help position companies that produce regenerative medicine products to be commercial and manufacturing ready.

Hummingbird’s mission is bold: to cure chronic and metabolic diseases by rapidly advancing regenerative medicine and biologics, while generating lasting value for patients, and the healthcare ecosystem. Arizona’s healthcare ecosystem provides the ideal environment for this mission — uniting leading hospitals, innovators and industry partners around a shared vision to accelerate regenerative medicine from discovery to patient impact.

“The growing life science and entrepreneurial ecosystems in Greater Phoenix will be greatly benefited by Hummingbird’s new resources by accelerating U.S. go-to-market strategies,” said Greater Phoenix Economic Council Vice President of Bioscience Business Development Allison Bakovic. “This builds upon the existing partnerships between Greater Phoenix and the Netherlands, and further immersion will help companies expedite commercialization and innovation for health technology and long-term prosperity.”

DEMCON: A New Strategic Knowledge Partner for Arizona

With this expansion, DEMCON Biomedical becomes a powerful new knowledge and engineering partner within the Arizona ecosystem, delivering tailored life sciences and health solutions.

DEMCON Life Sciences & Health, a Netherlands-based company that employs about 1,200 specialists throughout Europe, develops and manufactures high-quality medical devices and innovative systems from first idea through certified series production. As a full-service, high-tech engineering firm, DEMCON combines deep technical expertise with relentless innovation to solve complex healthcare challenges.

From custom-made medtech systems to breakthrough medical devices, DEMCON’s multidisciplinary teams turn the visionary ideas of startups and OEMs into real-world, life-changing solutions — pushing the boundaries of what is possible in healthcare.

“The partnership between Hummingbird and DEMCON within the Phoenix healthcare innovation hub is a fantastic example of furthering innovation and synergy between expertise in The Netherlands and Arizona,” said Marloes de Goeijen, director of the Netherlands Business Support Office Arizona. “Seeing two strong Dutch bioscience institutes represented here is a testament to Greater Phoenix as an important hub in life sciences. We’re positive that this new location will offer wonderful new opportunities for the Hummingbird-DEMCON partnership and are looking forward to further supporting them in their growth in the U.S.”

Launch of the Advanced Manufacturing Basecamp Program – 2026 edition

As part of its long-term commitment to Arizona, Hummingbird will launch the Advanced Manufacturing Basecamp Program in 2026 — a first-of-its-kind, engineering-driven manufacturing readiness program for regenerative medicine startups.

The Advanced Manufacturing Basecamp Program is designed to overcome the biggest hurdles for regenerative medicine ventures by equipping founders and CEOs early on with the knowledge and tools to build efficient, automation-ready manufacturing aligned with their clinical and regulatory pathways. By mastering these fundamentals themselves, leaders make better strategic choices in partners, clinical trajectory and scale-up — ultimately accelerating investor readiness and long-term success.

This intensive program will help early- and growth-stage companies:

• Build automation-ready production systems

• Integrate clinical manufacturing pathways

• Achieve investor readiness for future funding rounds

Dates: Sept. 28 – Oct. 7, 2026

In conjunction with:

• Advanced Manufacturing Tech Summit

• Cell & Gene Meeting on the Mesa (Oct. 5–7, 2026)

A Global Launchpad, powered by Arizona 

With the launch of the Hummingbird–DEMCON partnership, the Arizona life sciences ecosystem is further strengthened through a continuous inflow of high-potential ventures and deep-tech engineering expertise — driving economic growth, talent development and high-quality job creation.