The Health Technology Podcast

David Kim: Changing the Healthcare Ecosystem at DigiTx Partners

David Kim, MD, CEO, DigiTx Partners

David is the CEO of DigiTx Partners, bringing both business and clinical expertise to venture capital with an extensive background practicing medicine and building healthcare software companies. Most recently, Dr. Kim served as the COO of Lumiata, a venture-backed predictive analytics company positioned at the intersection of data science and medical science. Prior to Lumiata, he spent over a decade as an investor evaluating and growing healthcare companies at MPM Capital and Pinnacle Ventures. Before entering the business sector, David practiced as a general internist and hospitalist at Kaiser South San Francisco where he also served as the Director of Urgent Care and Assistant Chief of Internal Medicine. David completed his internal medicine residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and is a graduate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (M.D), Stanford Graduate School of Business (M.B.A.), and Pomona College (B.A., Biology). In addition to leading the DigiTx fund, David serves as an active advisor to the Catalyst Program within the UCSF Clinical & Translational Science Institute.

Nick Damiano & Shreya Mehta: Raising $31M for Zenflow's Solution to Treat Enlarged Prostate

Nick Damiano, CEO & Co-Founder, Zenflow

Nick Damiano, CEO and co-founder of Zenflow, is an experienced healthcare entrepreneur who has spent 12 years developing innovative medical device and digital health solutions. He earned his MS/BS from Stanford University and spent a year as a Stanford Biodesign Fellow.

 

 

 

Shreya Mehta, CTO & Co-Founder, Zenflow

Shreya Mehta, CTO and co-founder, was the Thomas Fogarty Fellow at Stanford Biodesign and is an experienced medtech engineer. She earned an MS in Biomedical Engineering from University of Pittsburgh and spent four years as a lead reviewer at FDA.

Eric Stone & Pitou Devgon: Velano Vascular and the Needle-Free Blood Draw

Eric M. Stone, CEO & Co-Founder, Velano Vascular

Eric M. Stone is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Velano Vascular. A patient advocate and serial healthcare entrepreneur, Stone currently serves as National Trustee and a Committee Chair of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA). Prior to Velano, he served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Molecular Health, and earlier in his career launched a series of pioneering interventional cardiology devices for Abbott while based in Brussels, Belgium and California. Stone was a founding member of Model N's (NYSE: MODN) Life Sciences division, where he led marketing and business development. Stone began his career in Marketing with Trilogy Software, and has since co-founded social sector programs at Harvard and Wharton. He served for a decade on Harvard University's Alumni Association (HAA) Board of Directors. Stone is a Director of Vigilant Biosciences and an Advisor to multiple healthcare upstarts. Stone received an MBA from The Wharton School, a Master's from Harvard University, and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. He lives with his wife and daughter in San Francisco.

Pitou Devgon, CMO & Co-Founder, Velano Vascular

Pitou Devgon is a physician entrepreneur, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Velano Vascular and the inventor of Velano Vascular’s patented vascular device technology.Prior to co-founding Velano Vascular, Pitou spent several years in venture capital at Safeguard Scientifics, focused on medical devices, diagnostics and healthcare IT investing. Pitou was instrumental in closing several notable investments at the firm and held board or advisory roles at Crescendo Biosciences and Ben Franklin Technology Partners.During his medical training and business school he had valuable experiences in a variety of roles, including technology transfer and patent review at UPenn and a summer associate position in marketing at Medtronic. Pitou caught his entrepreneurial spirit while still in college as a dot-com entrepreneur in the collegiate web portal space by founding and directing the Student Information Network, which became Sinapse Consulting.In addition to his ongoing staff physician appointment in the Medical ICU at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center Pitou regularly guest lectures at UPenn and the Wharton School on topics of entrepreneurship and healthcare investing.Pitou holds a BA in biological psychology from the College of William & Mary, an MD from Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Josh Makower: Lessons Learned at NEA and the ExploraMed Incubator

Josh Makower, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates

Josh Makower is a General Partner on NEA's healthcare team leading their medtech/healthtech practice. Josh is also the Founder and Executive Chairman of ExploraMed, a medical device incubator that has created 8 companies over the past 20 years. Notable transactions from the ExploraMed portfolio include NeoTract, acquired by Teleflex in 2017, Nuelle, acquired by Aytu in 2017, Acclarent, acquired by J&J in 2009, EndoMatrix, acquired by C.R. Bard in 1997 and TransVascular, acquired by Medtronic in 2003. On-going ExploraMed/NEA ventures include Moximed, Willow and Exploramed V. In addition to his role at NEA, Josh serves on the faculty of the Stanford University Medical School as a Consulting Professor of Medicine and is Co-Founder of Stanford's Biodesign Innovation Program. Josh currently serves on the board of directors for DOTS Devices, Eargo, ExploraMed, Intrinsic Therapeutics, Moximed, Willow, SetPoint Medical and Coravin. Josh holds over 300 patents and patent applications for various medical devices in the fields of cardiology, ENT, general surgery, drug delivery, obesity, orthopedics, women's health, and urology. He received an MBA from Columbia University, an MD from the NYU School of Medicine, and a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.

Maryam Ziaei: Transforming Screening for Breast Cancer

Maryam Ziaei, CEO & Co-Founder, iSono Health

Maryam Ziaei is passionate about connected medical devices and digital health platforms that empower consumers to both monitor and make smart decisions about their health. She has over 15 years of experience in product development, with a focus on design and manufacturing sensors. Before co-founding iSono Health, she worked at Sandia labs, Integrated Device Technologies (IDT), and Syston Donner Inertial. She has a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford.

Robert Chang: Reviving a Team and Technology to Repair Mitral Valves

Robert Chang, Co-Founder, President, & CEO, MVRx

Robert Chang is co-founder, president, and CEO of MVRx. A medical device entrepreneur and innovator, Robert developed and championed the company's technology now known as the ARTO System from its beginnings to the current late-stage global clinical trials. Rob is a hands-on manager and enjoys working with teams to achieve unimaginable objectives.

Rob has more than 30 years of executive and development experience, predominantly in structural heart therapies. Most recently he was an Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Sadra Medical prior to its acquisition by Boston Scientific Corporation and remained with Boston as a Vice President after the acquisition. Prior to Sadra, Robert co-founded and served as President, CEO and Director at Ample Medical. Previously, he held positions of increasing responsibility at Satiety, IsoStent and Devices for Vascular Intervention.

Mehrdad Farhangnia: Founding and Building Roxwood Medical

Mehrdad Farhangnia, Founder & CEO, Track Medical

Mehrdad joined Roxwood Medical at its formation in 2011, bringing with him a successful track record of launching novel medical devices. The company has since raised three rounds of private equity financing to support its rapid growth. It was acquired by BTG International in 2018.

Mehrdad has over two decades of technical and commercial experience, with prior management roles at Spiracur, Rubicor Medical, FoxHollow Technologies and CardioVention Inc. Prior to his career in medical devices, Mehrdad spent six years at NASA Ames Research Center, leading collaboration efforts with key aerospace manufacturers and national laboratories. He is an inventor of 12 issued patents and has co-authored 10 peer-reviewed publications or conference proceedings. Mehrdad received his BS and MS degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado.

Evan Anderson: Launching Luma Therapeutics & its Psoriasis Patch

Evan Anderson, CEO & Board Member, Luma Therapeutics

Evan Anderson, CEO and Board Member of Luma Therapeutics, has 17 years of experience in early stage product and market development. He completed the Stanford Biodesign Fellowship in 2004 and was first manager of R&D and then distribution sales at Spiracur (acquired by Acelity).

From the Luma Therapeutics website:

We are a medical device company developing light therapies for the 40 million people in the US with inflammatory skin disorders. Luma Therapeutics was born when our CEO Evan Anderson found that he had psoriasis and discovered a way to treat himself effectively. He knew then that he wanted to develop similar treatments for the millions of other people suffering from skin disorders.

We work hard every day to help people get clear skin with easy to use, affordable therapies.

Our goal is to develop an at home treatment that will put psoriasis in remission for an extended period of time after only a few weeks of therapy.

Kirsten Carroll: How to Develop, Communicate, and Deliver on a Winning Medtech Strategy

Kirsten Carroll, Vice President, Strategic Development, Imperative Care

Kirsten Carroll holds over 15 years of experience in product development, marketing, strategy and business development for medical devices in stroke care. In November 2017, she joined Imperative Care (an Incept Company), working under the leadership of Fred Khosravi. Prior to her new role, Kirsten was the Senior Director of Strategic Development at Stryker Neurovascular, leading business intelligence, NV services products and BD deal modeling and diligence activities. Kirsten’s first 8 years at Stryker Neurovascular (previously Boston Scientific) were spent in a succession of marketing management roles in the access and hemorrhagic stroke franchises. During that tenure she acted as marketing lead on multiple product development teams, the MAPS Trial, and ultimately the Target Coil, which went on to realize over $1B in revenue to-date and remains the #1 embolization coil in the world. Following the neurovascular division’s acquisition by Stryker in 2011, Kirsten moved into Marketing Operations, ultimately building it into a 9-person Strategic Development function that managed business development, portfolio planning and business intelligence. She holds 2 patents on pre-shaped microcatheters and is a contributing author on 3 publications in the American Journal of Neuroradiology. Kirsten earned a B.Sc. in biomedical engineering from Yale University and an MBA and MPH from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Michael Seres: From Hacking an Ostomy Sensor to Commercializing a Platform for Patients Worldwide

Michael Seres, Founder & CEO, 11 Health

Michael Seres, the Founder/ CEO of 11 Health and Technologies Limited, was diagnosed with the incurable bowel condition, Crohn's Disease at the age of 12. After over 20 operations and an intestinal failure, Michael became the 11th person to undergo a small bowel transplant at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, UK, which included becoming a stoma patient. Additionally, Michael is also a 2-time Cancer patient. In 2013, Michael founded the health tech start up 11 health and has developed sensor technology for ostomy patients.

Michael, started blogging about his journey through Bowel Transplant and his blog now has over 100,000 followers. He uses social media to develop global online peer to peer communities: covering over 20,000 patients. He is now the patient lead for the main UK health twitter chat #NHSSM, a member of the NHS England Digital Services user council, a published author and a professional speaker. He is the inaugural e-patient in residence and an executive board member at Stanford Medicine X. Michael helped implement the first skype clinics in Oxford Hospital and is an ambassador to the Doctors 2.0 conference.