Scott Nelson Live

In this episode, we caught up with Steve Anderson, CEO of Preceptis Medical, and a serial medical device entrepreneur. 

While serving as CEO of Acorn Cardiovascular, he and a neighbor came up with the idea of creating a device that could help doctors insert a tube in children’s ears in the doctor’s office instead of the operating room. They ended up starting Preceptis Medical in 2011, and in 2020, their Hummingbird device received clearance from the FDA.

In this discussion, Steve explains why your value proposition needs to be front of mind from the start, why having someone who’s been there and done it before can help you navigate the process of getting to market and writing a study protocol that shows regulators exactly what they need to see.

In this episode, we caught up with chemical engineer and serial entrepreneur Peter Vranes, the Co-Founder and CEO of Nutromics, an Australian medtech company that is developing a digitally connected wearable patch to track molecular targets.

Previously, Peter founded Biocore Technologies, which developed natural cosmeceutical skincare brands with distribution in 1,500 retailers throughout Australia. He had a successful exit in 2013.

In this fun discussion, Peter explains how he learned to embrace publicity as a necessary part of doing business, why getting your device approved goes beyond government regulatory bodies and the reason he never stops raising money. 

In this episode, we’re talking with ReShape Lifesciences CEO Bart Bandy, who started out selling medical equipment door-to-door, then landed a spot in the first sales class for Ethicon Endo-Surgery. He ran the company’s global sales and managed the San Francisco division, before becoming the Group Marketing Manager of Karl Storz Endoscopy.

In 1999, Bart was recruited to become COO of laparoscopic weight loss startup Inamed. He helped manage the company’s $3.5 billion acquisition by Allergan in 2006. Then in 2019, he became CEO and President of ReShape, which had just acquired the Lap-Band, previously owned by Inamed.

In this discussion, Bart explains how he writes and tests his presentations for maximum impact, the challenges and solutions of moving manufacturing from Costa Rica to the U.S., and why he wanted to add telemedicine to ReShape Lifesciences without moving away from the brand’s core mission.

In this episode, we caught up with IONIQ Sciences CEO Jared Bauer, who has spent his career turning around struggling medtech companies. He acquired BurnFree Products in 2012, selling it four years later. In 2014, he became CEO of the mobile diagnostics system ApolloDx. Shortly after, he became CEO of the spin-off company Cibus Biotechnologies, which makes a handheld diagnostic system to test for infectious diseases. 

In this conversation, 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. 

In this episode, we caught up with health economist, Nic Anderson, who spent seven years at Intermountain Healthcare on the payer side. He learned first-hand what evidence insurers need to convince them to cover a new medical device or healthcare technology. 

After co-founding a biotech company, Nic turned his experience as a payer into an in-demand consultancy. He’s also served on payer advisory boards and was an expert in residence at a digital health accelerator in Dubai. He now works as a health economist for Boston Scientific.

In this conversation, Nic explains why medtech companies, in particular, need to win over insurance payers, how investing early in a health economics and market access (HEMA) team will help you do that, and how to write a dossier a payer won’t want to throw out the window.

In this episode, we caught up with Giovanni Lauricella and Aaron Green to discuss all things related to fundraising for early-stage medical device start-ups. 

In this interview, we learn about the ins and outs of raising medtech capital, what investors want to see in a medical device start-up, and best practices for pitching potential partners. But first, here’s a bit more about their backgrounds:

Giovanni Lauricella holds a Bachelor’s in Finance, a Master’s in Regulatory Affairs in Medical Devices, Biologics, and Pharmaceuticals, a Harvard University Certificate for Advanced Negotiation Strategy, and a Università Bocconi Certificate for Private Equity and Venture Capital. He has more than a decade of experience partnering with startups, SMEs, boards of directors, and investors on structuring technical and commercial teams from the C-level to individual contributors. Giovanni and his team have hired more than 7,000 employees for over 500 startups in more than 40 countries and assisted in facilitating capital raises for startups that amount to more than $150 million.

Aaron Green has a Ph.D. in computational chemistry from UCLA. In 2014, he became the first hire at Neural Analytics (now NovaSignal) where he held leadership roles spanning clinical, finance, sales, and marketing. Aaron currently runs U.S. operations for Labgnostic, a global interoperability platform for clinical laboratories. He co-founded MedTech Money with Giovanni Lauricella in 2020 and founded ExtractEx, a botanical extraction startup, in 2021.

In this episode, we’re talking with Dr. Asha Parekh, a biomedical engineer and the co-founder & CEO of FrontLine Medical Technologies, a Canadian medical device startup. FrontLine has developed a novel REBOA device that helps trauma patients survive in emergency situations. If you're not familiar, REBOA stands for Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta.

In this discussion with Asha, we learn about her medtech journey from early-stage device prototypes to raising venture capital to navigate the global regulatory landscape. But first, here’s a bit more on Asha’s background:

Asha has a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Western University in Ontario. In 2015, she partnered with Dr. Adam Power, a practicing vascular surgeon, to co-found FrontLine, which makes the COBRA-OS device for trauma patients.

In this episode, we're chatting with Mark Toland, a veteran medtech executive who is the CEO of MMI, a startup medical device company in the robotics space.

MMI stands for Medical Micro Instruments, and it’s an Italian company that’s developing a surgical robotic system capable of performing microsurgery on capillaries, small vessels, and other parts of the body existing robotic technology can’t reach. We’re going to dig into the robotics arena and chat about things like growing medtech startups, raising venture capital, positioning for an acquisition, and keys to successful commercial launches. First, here’s a bit more on Mark's background: 

Before MMI, Mark was the CEO of Corindus, transforming the company into a leader in vascular robotics before it was acquired by Siemens for $1.1 billion in 2019. Prior to Corindus, Mark was at Boston Scientific for over 15 years, serving as Senior Vice President, where he built the company’s global solutions business and led all aspects of the U.S. commercial team’s cardiovascular businesses, representing approximately $4 billion in revenue. 

He also serves on the Board of Directors for Cardiologs, a cardiovascular AI company, and Amplitude Vascular Systems, an intravascular lithotripsy company. He also serves as a partner and EIR at Biostar Capital, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm. Mark got his bachelor’s in business from the University of Louisville.

In this episode, we're catching up with Derek Herrera, who has an incredible story to share. He’s a decorated Marine veteran who’s turned a major combat injury into a mission to help other patients with spinal injuries. Derek is the founder of UroDev, originally Spinal Singularity, as well as Habit Camera, the first low-cost, wireless camera purpose-built for skin inspection and telehealth.

UroDev is on the cusp of bringing its Intelliflow device to market, a product uniquely designed for spinal injury patients who have urology conditions like a neurogenic bladder that require extensive catheter use. 

Today, Derek and I are going to chat about his journey from the military to the medical device space and get into what he’s learned about becoming a first-time entrepreneur with a big idea but not a lot of funding or experience. 

In this episode, we’re catching up with Bob Paulson, the CEO of VentureMed, a peripheral vascular medtech startup. Bob has over two decades of medical device executive experience, as the CEO of NxThera and Restore Medical, and in leadership roles at Endocardial Solutions, Advanced Bionics, and Medtronic. Bob’s excited multiple medtech startups, and today, he’s going to share his vast expertise, including capital fundraising tips, keys to early-stage medical device product development, and best practices when it comes to clinical evidence and insurance reimbursement. But first, here’s a bit more on Bob’s background:

In addition to being CEO of VentureMed, he serves as a Director for Veran Medical Technologies and Spineology. Before he got started in medtech, he worked for General Mills, got an MBA from St. Thomas, and went to law school at Vanderbilt. Bob got involved with medical devices at Medtronic in the early 90s and later was CEO of NxThera, which commercialized benign prostate hyperplasia therapies before it was acquired by Boston Scientific. Bob is one of the most knowledgeable executives in the field, and I’m excited to get his take on the business landscape in today’s rapidly-changing healthcare environment.