Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of talking to some of the brightest minds in the health technology and medical device arenas. Many of you have joined in by listening to those conversations on our Medsider podcast.
To add even more value, we’ve distilled the key insights from these founders and CEOs into this volume of Medsider Mentors. Feel free to use these learnsings as a reference guide to the podcasts you’ve already enjoyed. Or, you can use it as a sampler to decide which episodes you’re most excited to download.
Some of you will have read and enjoyed our first volume of Medsider Mentors. For you, this edition adds new perspectives to some of the ideas we started exploring there. If you missed it, consider going back to get the most out of both volumes.
Here’s a taste of what’s to come:
Marcus Gerhardt on Building Community
Research is at the core of success in medical technology. If you want to develop a brain-computer interface, it's critical. That's why Blackrock Neurotech intentionally forged relationships with 500 leading neuroscientists. In our interview, CEO Marcus explains how this helps them stay at the bleeding edge of the field.
Kevin Goodwin on Private Sector Financing
In 2015, Kevin Goodwin put his 30 years of experience to use by co-founding EchoNous. The company is developing a portable point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) powered by machine learning. It's since raised $120 million in private investment. Kevin credits the success to finding investors who are also partners.
Robert Kline on Building for the Long Term
Robert Kline has a long list of successes. He sold Medivance for $260 million in 2011, ViroCryte in 2016 for $16 million, and Bolder Surgical for $160 in 2021. He’s now the Chairman of ThermoTek. His advice is to focus on building sustainable businesses rather than optimising for an exit. Even if you do sell, buyers will want to buy a company with a future.
Holly Rockweiler on Pushing Through
For Madorra CEO Holly Rockweiler, building a successful start-up is all about passion. Working in the medical space can wear you down. But, seeing how your product improves the lives of patients will give you the motivation to keep going.
John Murphy on Navigating Regulatory Hurdles
John Murphy leads Virtual Incision, which builds portable surgical robots. The surgical robotics space is getting noisier by the year, but Virtual Incension’s systems are only 2 lbs and can be set up in 10 minutes. In our interview, John provides insights on their strategies for navigating regulatory hurdles.
Rosina Samadani on Getting to Market Quickly
Rosina Samadani is the CEO of Oculogica. She's also a judge for Stanford's StartX Accelerator and MIT's $100K Entreprenuership Competition. Her philosophy is to get to market quickly. She lovingly refers to Oculogica's first prototype as as "the duct tape prototype." It was literally held together with tape during clinical trials.
Caroline Loew on Engaging with FDA
As the CEO of Glympse Bio, Caroline Loew is pioneering biomarker diagnostics. The company analyses proteins in a blood sample to identify disease states. We discussed her philosophy on working with FDA, which she describes as "early and often." The trick, according to Caroline, is to keep things moving forward from the start.
Jim Biggins on Collecting VOC
Under Jim's leadership, Access Vascular recently closed a $20 million Series B round. This will help them develop a new base material for vascular access devices that promises to reduce complications. He believes too many entrepreneurs miss the opportunity to speak directly with practitioners throughout all stages of development.
See the Rest
There’s a reason I look forward to these conversations. I always find a practical nugget of insight that I can apply to leading my own team at FastWave Medical. My hope is that this volume will be as helpful to you as it has been to me.
We appreciate your readership, and as always, let us know who you’d like to hear from in the next edition of Medsider Mentors.
Best Wishes,
