Spring 2027

Medical Devices Ecosystem: the Path to Product

Medical Devices Ecosystem covers developing therapeutic or diagnostic devices through gap analysis, market analysis, regulatory approval, and supply chain development.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Wally Block

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Kip Ludwig

The course was rated as moderately difficult by the reviewing student.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Develop an evolving competitive landscape analysis

  • Identify common issues in manufacturing/supply chain

  • Describe key aspects of clinical trial design

  • Discuss intellectual property both In theory and in practice

  • Articulate the differences between regulatory pathways in Europe and the United States

  • Define key aspects of pre-clinical testing, including Quality Systems, Good Laboratory Practices, and Good Manufacturing Practices

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

B M E 402 or concurrent enrollment, graduate/professional standing, or member of Engineering Guest Students

BME 640

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027
Historical instructors & teaching patterns

KIP LUDWIG is recorded teaching in Spring 2023, Spring 2024. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 500

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Kip Ludwig

Students found the class really useful and highly focused on the knowledge required for industry roles.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=54 letter grades); Spring 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=49 letter grades); Spring 2026: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=62 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Kip Ludwig

The course was rated as moderately difficult by the reviewing student.

Past student reviews · Kip Ludwig

The review highlighted that the content was directly applicable to professional needs in the field.

Topics

  • Device development lifecycle including gap analysis, market analysis, and supply chain
  • Case studies on IP, pre-clinical testing, and US/European regulatory pathways
  • Team-based refinement and presentation of design ideas and corporate strategy

Skills

  • Developing competitive landscape analysis
  • Describing key aspects of clinical trial design
  • Discussing intellectual property in theory and practice
  • Articulating differences between US and European regulatory pathways
  • Defining key aspects of pre-clinical testing and quality systems

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
BME 640 · Spring 2027

Medical Devices Ecosystem: The Path to Product

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:207:026373",
    "course_id": "BME 640",
    "course_uid": "course_74eaf2fde709f1dc1c441f32",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "026373",
    "source_subject_id": "207",
    "title": "Medical Devices Ecosystem: The Path to Product",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "8679b8548fe742ae7b736f2fc3fc2cf87829845ba97fe0cf29c06877c60ae165",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}