the Gatekeepers Paul Grand's vision for overhauling med tech funding
For the past few years, I've been searching for health tech leaders who decide which products evolve from the idea-stage into full-blown deployment at hospitals. I call them The Gatekeepers, and I've written about a couple of them already. This week, my colleague Lizzy Lawrence spotlights a giant in universe of devices: Paul Grand, who founded and leads startup accelerator MedTech Innovators.
Each year, Grand and his team whittle more than a thousand applications down to around 50; after a year of mentoring and refining their pitches, one winner (determined by a panel of judges) gets $350,000.
The accelerator has netted successful exits: Hillrom scooped up heart monitoring startup Bardy Diagnostics for $375 million, and Abbot bought insulin management venture BigFoot Medical for an undisclosed amount.
Grand's vision is lofty: He wants to change the funding landscape for medtech companies by propelling startup exit values into billions of dollars.
"The next AI startup, with no revenue and really, no idea how they're ever gonna make money, is already a $3 billion company," Grand said. "Yet a medtech company that's going to allow people to avoid an early death from something that's preventable is valued at 400 million." Read more from Lizzy.
Lizzy's device digest
Medtronic blood pressure device scores FDA approval
Device news abounds: late last week Lizzy reported on a clash between the federal government and its advisory panel over a high blood pressure device.
The Food and Drug Administration approved a device sold by Medtronic to lower high blood pressure, despite its advisory panel narrowly voting against it earlier this year.
The device facilitates a process known as renal denervation, designed for patients who can't take standard doses of blood pressure medication. It's inserted into kidney arteries, and electrodes emit ultrasound energy to block kidney nerve signals that would have increased blood pressure.
It's been a long journey for Medtronic, which first acquired the technology through Ardian in 2010 and failed its first renal denervation clinical trial in 2013. Sean Salmon, head of Medtronic's cardiovascular business, acknowledged that the company has some work to do in educating doctors and patients about the technology. It won't ever replace blood pressure medications, but it might be a helpful addition."If you've heard anything about this, you've heard that there's been some troubles," Salmon told Lizzy. "We've got some lifting to do to make sure people understand who this is for."
As Lizzy writes, it's quite rare for the agency not to follow the panel's guidance. It also approved a similar device from competitor Recor earlier this month. Read more.
A digital pill could detect overdose, sleep apnea
Lizzy also took a look at Celero Systems, a company testing a swallowable patient monitor designed to measure heart and respiratory data. In a small trial — just 10 patients — these "digital pills" successfully took those measurements, a step toward diagnosing sleep conditions and respiratory distress. The company is working toward detecting overdose and releasing drugs to counteract the overdose.
"There was an opportunity to make a product that was analogous to an implantable defibrillator, in the sense that a defibrillator monitors for sudden cardiac death and delivers therapy," Celero Systems CEO Ben Pless told Lizzy.
Digital pills aren't new, but they aren't widely used: Medtronic recently sunset its SmartPill, which monitored pH levels and digestive movement, after struggling to find critical supplies. Read more.
Hospitals
Health systems raise the bar on tech pilots
Gone are the days of multiple concurrent months-long hospital tech pilots: health leaders are much more cautious about the products they test as they creep back into the black from their financial nadir last year. They have a little more money to spend on technology than last year, but they're using it on fewer and shorter pilots, eschewing flashy software they're not sure will pan out, health leaders told me.
"I have a certain amount of goodwill credits I've built up with my physicians and I want to use those judiciously in the pilots we do," Paul Fu, who leads digital health efforts at City of Hope, told me. Compared to a few years ago, "our risk tolerance is lower."
But there's also mounting pressure to use products that could help beleaguered hospitals become more efficient. Read more on the outlook for tech pilots here.
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