For a man who took a company from $17 million in sales to a $4.5 billion publicly traded juggernaut listed at #307 on Forbes 400 billionaires, John Brown is a remarkably humble man. He’s also, for all intents and purposes, the man who put Stryker (NYSE:SYK) on the map during his 32-year tenure as CEO, […]
Can Greg Lucier bring the Life Technologies mojo to NuVasive?
Newly minted NuVasive CEO Greg Lucier has quite the pedigree when it comes to building successful companies. Lucier, who was named permanent CEO of the San Diego, Calif.-based spinal device company in May 2015, built Life Technologies from a start up (then named Invitrogen) to a global biotech juggernaut with 12,000 employees and just under […]
How Exact Sciences built a DNA screening test for colorectal cancer
In a seemingly endless war on cancer, the best weapon remains early detection, according to Graham Lidgard, senior vice president of R&D at Exact Sciences Corp. For Lidgard, and the rest of the team at the Madison, Wisc.-based molecular diagnostics maker, the battlefield is colorectal cancer, 1 of the most common, and deadliest, cancers in […]
Marie Johnson and the mission to prevent sudden heart attack deaths
Marie Johnson never had any intention of becoming the CEO of a medical device company with a mission of “changing the world,” but then again she never had any intention of becoming a widow with 2 small children either. In 2002, Johnson, CEO and founder of Northfield, Minn.-based Aum Cardiovascular was a PhD student when […]
Exit interview: Stephen Ubl on moving on from AdvaMed
Before Stephen Ubl departed for a job as the chief lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, medtech’s main man in Washington, D.C., sat down with MassDevice.com publisher Brian Johnson to reflect on his time at AdvaMed. Ubl worked 16 years at the Advanced Medical Technology Assn., spending the last 10 years as president & CEO, raising the medical device industry’s national […]
One of medtech’s most successful men reflects on failure
Dr. Manny Villafaña is one of the most successful men in the history of medical innovation, having founded some of the most successful companies in the industry, including Guidant Corp., which was sold to Boston Scientific for more than $27 billion and St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ). His most recent venture, Kips Bay Medical was supposed to […]
Airing: The story behind one of medtech’s most successful crowdfunding campaigns | DeviceTalks Podcast
Inventor Stephen Marsh has more than 70 patents to his name, but his most recent endeavor, the Airing device – a hoseless, maskless, disposable micr0-CPAP machine for obstructive sleep apnea, may make him a household name. Marsh and his Burlington, Mass.-based startup have already made quite a mark on medtech by running 1 of the most successful crowdfunding […]
The quest for a better spinal cord injury treatment: InVivo Therapeutics CEO Mark Perrin
Ten years ago, InVivo Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NVIV) was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with big ambitions and an even bigger amount of chutzpah. Then-CEO Frank Reynolds was a force of nature, a man we described in a 2009 profile as a “robust 44-year-old who speaks in rapid-fire, Bronx-tinged clips.” Reynolds left the company in 2013, […]
DeviceTalks Podcast Exclusive: Behind the Boston Scientific turnaround with CEO Michael Mahoney
In this episode of DeviceTalks, recorded live at our DeviceTalks Boston event at Boston Scientific‘s (NYSE:BSX) corporate headquarters, we talk with CEO Mike Mahoney to discuss the company’s recent turnaround. Mahoney, who joined the company in 2012 and took over as CEO in 2013, sat down with MassDevice.com Publisher Brian Johnson for an exclusive, inside look […]
How Reshape Medical built an alternative to bariatric surgery for obesity | DeviceTalks Podcast
In this episode of DeviceTalks, we speak with Richard Thompson, CEO of ReShape Medical, about the company’s bariatric surgery alternative for people suffering from obesity. In July, San Clemente, Calif.-based ReShape won pre-market approval from the FDA for its dual balloon system, indicated to facilitate weight loss in obese adult patients. The system is designed to be inserted […]
DeviceTalks Podcast: Rosalind Picard on how embracing emotion led to healthcare innovation
In this episode of DeviceTalks, we delve deeply into emotion with MIT scientist and entrepreneur Rosalind Picard and her story of how teaching computers to recognize emotions led to a potentially major breakthrough in medical technology. Picard is also the chief scientist at Cambridge, Mass.-based Empatica, an early-stage firm that’s developed a smart watch and other wearable […]