When You Should Give a Struggling Medtech Company a Second Chance

If running just one medtech startup is keeping you up at night, it’s a miracle Jared Bauer gets any sleep at all.

He has an MBA from Boise State University, and has put it to work successfully turning around multiple medtech companies.

Jared started by acquiring BurnFree Products in 2012, which he sold in 2016. While that company was on the exit path, in 2014, he became CEO of mobile diagnostics system ApolloDx. From that, he spun out Cibus Biotechnologies and became its CEO. The company’s main product is a handheld portable diagnostic system for detecting infectious diseases.

Jared is also CEO of IONIQ Sciences, makers of a device that uses bioimpedance to detect cancer as early as the first or second stage. In 2020, the device was granted a breakthrough designation for lung cancer by the FDA. Jared hopes that it will one day be able to scan a person’s entire body for multiple types of cancer at once.

One could easily assume that juggling all these balls leaves his head reeling, but as a self-described “heavy thinker” Jared says that having diversity in his projects keeps him clear-headed.

“When I add another element and I'm being forced to go and address something else in a different application, I can come back and think more clearly,” he says. “Rather than just feeling the intensity of the stress, I'm able to strategically evaluate the situation.”

In this episode of Medsider, Jared explains the two key factors he looks at when determining whether a medical device company is worth trying to turn around, why finding investors who really care about your mission is a strategic benefit, and why he hopes that IONIQ’s devices will one day have a place in your medicine cabinet.