By Amy Siegel, S2N Health

In S2N’s very first blog, back when we founded our company in 2011, we shared our top 5 reasons why we like the med tech industry. Times have been challenging for emerging med tech companies, though, and the bad days can make you start to doubt your career choices. Maybe it’s time to do something sexier, like develop an app for $0.99 that 100 million people want, or a biotech drug for a really bad disease that 12 people have.

Yet we continue to soldier on, humbly confident that medical devices are still important, and in fact things are looking up for med tech in 2014. It’s been a good year for S2N as well, so we got bold and added some youthful talent to our team. When we offered Andy the job, we weren’t sure we could compete with the glitz and glamour of biotech. Why would anyone with a million possibilities want to get into med tech now, much less work with us?

To lay our bewilderment to rest, and shamelessly fish for complements from our vulnerable new hire, we asked Andy to refresh our top 5 List with his reasons for entering the med tech field. What attracts a young buck like Andy to join us rapidly aging folk in the pursuit of med tech nirvana?

Here’s what Andy had to say:

1. Have you ever heard of Facebook? Yeah, me too. Like most of my generation, I was raised by the Internet. We worshipped Mark Cuban and Mark Zuckerberg, now household names; Silicon Valley is the new Hollywood. What I see in med tech is a potential to rekindle a forgotten industry. While many of my peers flew out West like moths to a bright light, I trekked up to the land of miserable winters and unhealthy Red Sox obsessions (also known as Boston). I knew I wanted to work in an industry that was a little less glitz and a little more grit. Call me naïve, but I see med tech taking front stage in the next tech boom. I’m just getting in while it’s still under everyone else’s radar.
2. From day one of college I knew I wanted to get into biomedical engineering. In my years of lab research I grew to love the concept of manipulating the mechanics of biological systems to create whole new technologies. But sometimes it felt like my scientific papers were just landing in the great academic abyss. Blame it on me, or blame it on the short attention span of my entire generation, but I knew I needed a little more instant gratification. Wait, what was my point again? Oh right: I wanted to work in an industry that lets you see the hard work of lab research put to use in the real world, and in real people.
3. Biology is all about revealing the fundamental mechanism behind a process. As a biologist (-ish), I wanted to understand the process of taking knowledge learned at the lab bench and spinning it into a company. After so many years focusing on the science behind medical devices, I became increasingly curious about the businesses behind them, too. Based on my experience, the majority of scientists have only a hazy concept of everything that must happen to translate a science project into a revenue-generating product. The way I see it, this is my new mission: to reveal the mechanisms of turning science into business.
4. I really should have put this at #1, but here it is: the problems that medical devices take on are the problems worth solving. As much as I love sharing pictures of what I had for dinner with all my Internet friends, the gains for humanity made by these trendy apps are lost on me. With med tech though, every new product launch has the potential to improve or extend a patient’s life. This business might not be the most glamorous, or the best for hitting a jackpot product, but at least the medical device industry strives to tackle real problems. And that makes going to work every day worthwhile.
5. Deep down, everyone is a salesman, whether you are trying to sell a device, some old speakers on Craigslist, or even just sell yourself as a talented, competent professional. Growing up, I always seemed to be meddling in some “make a quick buck” scheme. Maybe it was this unquenched entrepreneurial spirit that finally drove me to the scrappy space of med tech startups. I wouldn’t be surprised if the thrill of teetering between boom and bust brought you all to this space as well. Whatever the outcome, you know that you are taking action, trying to do something that matters.

There you have it – why I chose to go into the med tech industry in 700 words or less. Now I get to peer into the black boxes of a dozen different med tech companies, all of which are at the forefront of their space. Who knows which one is going to be the next household name?

The views and opinions expressed on are solely those of the original author. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of MassDevice.com.