Halifax engineers Tim Burke and Bill Power have formed a new medical technology company in Halifax that is starting not with a grand idea but a new method of developing innovation.

Impetus Innovations doesn’t know yet what its first product will be. Instead Co-CEOs Burke and Power have assembled a team of innovation specialists who will approach medical device companies, sound them out about their pain points and come back with solutions.

``We operate on one fundamental theory: don’t build anything that people don’t want to buy,’’ said Burke, who is the President and Co-Founder of Quark Engineering, a Halifax innovation lab that has spawned a range of startups.

He explained that entrepreneurs too often begin with an idea – usually a great idea – on how to solve pain, but realize customers don’t want the product after they have spent years developing it. Impetus has assembled a team and secured seed funding and plans to work with established medical device companies to develop products they will use.

Power, who previously worked with Halifax tech startup InfoInterActive Inc. and mining concerns, and Burke plan to work in smart orthopaedics, improving not only devices themselves but also the surgical procedures and follow-up examinations needed to implant them.

``It’s primarily a metal space now and we’re looking at the benefits of bringing electronic and digital technologies to that marketplace,’’ said Burke.

The business proposition is aided by the fact that the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. is now considering economics when approving devices, said Burke. The FDA is tending to favor products that can reduce the cost of healthcare delivery, which should benefit the products developed by Impetus.

The company started when Burke and Power met with Michael Gross, a professor of orthopaedic surgery at Dalhousie University, to discuss the process of improving technology in the field. They have since secured an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Gordon Stewart, the former owner of Braden Burry Expediting Ltd. of Edmonton.

Burke and Power said the company is funded for about 1 ½ years, after which it will likely have to raise money. It has thus far received support from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Innovacorp and BioNova.

Impetus Innovations is Burke’s second medical technologies project. He and Dalhousie Associate Professor Mohamed Abdolell have formed Densitas, which is developing a system to provide real-time breast density measurements each time a woman receives a screening mammogram.