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About Bluewater Medical

An independent medical device development and consulting practice for traumatology, orthopaedics and spine surgery — founded and led by Christian Lutz.

Christian Lutz

Christian Lutz

Christian works as an independent consultant and development partner through Bluewater Medical, supporting manufacturers, surgeons and inventors in realizing their product ideas. He draws on a network of designers, vendors and key opinion leaders built over around 30 years in medical device product development.

Alongside his consultancy work, he is a part-time Research Associate at the Centre for Clinical Research of the BG Klinikum Hamburg.

  • ~30 years in medical devices
  • Named on ~40 patents
  • German · English · French

Career highlights

  • Bluewater Medical — Founder & independent consultantDevelopment and consulting for trauma, spine and orthopaedics; in-house developments such as the flexible screwdriver.
  • BG Klinikum Hamburg — Research Associate (part-time)Clinical research at the Centre for Clinical Research, alongside the consultancy.
  • Swemac InnovationFour years bringing legacy and new products into MDR compliance and opening new markets, including Japan.
  • Senior Director R&D and MarketingAt an industry-leading US medical device company: ten years as R&D Director, teams in five international R&D centres across three countries, products with more than US$400M annual turnover, and CE- and FDA-compliant development processes.
  • Test and development engineerStarted his career at Howmedica, contributing to spinal systems such as XIA (later Stryker Spine).

Christian is a regular speaker at medical device and technology congresses.

Work principles

How we think

Seek the opportunity in adversity

We focus on the fields where others struggle — the design of the device, the complexity of the R&D process, or cost pressure on the product. Master those, and a competitive advantage follows.

“If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research and development.”— Albert Einstein

Understand the user needs

Rather than just developing the suggested solution, we work to understand what drives the customer and how they measure success. This often leads to surprising, better innovations.

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”— Henry Ford

Interdisciplinary execution

Some projects are like sailboats: they have a hull speed set by design. If you sail slower, something is wrong. We analyse the interfaces between functions so projects run without losing time to market.

“If you want to build a ship, teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Achieve more with less

Keep the design simple but not simplistic, and optimise manufacturing cost. Over a product’s lifecycle, manufacturing cost affects return on investment more than rarely-used features.

“The ingenuity of a design lies within its simplicity. Everybody can do complicated.”— Sergei Korolev

Get in touch

Let’s talk about your project.

Whether you need a development partner, a second opinion on your portfolio or the right contact in the industry — we come straight to the point.