Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, everyone, this is Tom Slummy of Device Talks. Welcome back to the Device Talks Weekly podcast. We have a great episode coming your way. A little later in the podcast, I'll speak with Dave Carey. He's the CEO of Perceptus. Dave has become a good friend of mine and he's the type of person I think about when we put together Medtech content. He's just been a stalwart in medical devices and sales and OWL operations, and now he's the CEO of Perceptis, which is one of those medical device companies that's been around a bit, has amazing technology, and is working to find its way into the commercial market. So I know you'll enjoy that conversation with Dave Carey.
Before that, of course, we'll have Newmarkers newsmakers with Chris Newmarker, the editor of Mass Device.
Before we begin, a bit of news. But first, I want to invite you to join us on Tuesday for Device Talks. Tuesdays, Kayleen Brown will be moderating a webinar from our very good friends at S3 Connected Health. They've been one of our longtime supporters of Device Talks.
Great firm. They always put it together. A great presentation. You can go go to devicetalks.com to register for that. That's free. You can watch that live and watch that on demand.
Before we begin the podcast, I have a bit of news.
This is my last episode of Device Talks Weekly. Moving on from Device Talks, I'm going to pursue other opportunities. I'm excited about that, but I am certainly sad to be leaving my friends here at Device Talks and Mass Device, and also to be leaving my many good friends out there in Device Talks, the Dev Talks community.
We launched this podcast a little over six years ago when the pandemic was just settling in. And we did it to connect with folks, and we did. And I'm very grateful for that.
Heard lots of kind words about the podcast, about the role it's played during the lockdown and about the role it's played since. And I just couldn't have anticipated a better outcome. And I'm grateful for every bit of it. I'm grateful to our hundreds of guests. I'm grateful to our hundreds of sponsors. I'm grateful to our tens of thousands of listeners.
It's just been an amazing ride and I just want to say thank you. That's all. I don't do prepared remarks. I sometimes think I should, but I often just like to speak from the heart and that covers it.
I'm certainly sad. I'm certainly excited to be moving into a new direction, and I will certainly be available. You'll see me around, follow me on LinkedIn, see what I'm up to. So, that being said, again, thank you to everyone who has been part of Device Talks, who has listened to our podcast, participated in our webinars, sponsored our webinars, attended our events, sponsored our events, et cetera, et cetera.
I love MedTech and I have loved bringing this podcast to you and our other podcast to you for your enjoyment. So thanks again, everyone. We'll kick off this episode with, of course, Chris Newmarker and the newmarker Snoozemakers. Move into the interview, and then we'll wrap things up. Let's go.
All right, you ready for this?
[00:03:19] Speaker B: Ready.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Chris Newmarker. How are you, sir?
[00:03:41] Speaker B: I'm doing all right. Doing all right.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: I already broke the news to our listeners if they listen to the intro. So, yes, this is our final Newmarkers newsmakers.
Yeah. Chris, it's been a pleasure and an honor. And you, you. And I remember calling you in March 2020 and saying, Chris, we're doing a podcast on Friday. And you're like, okay. And we. We did it. Yeah, we done did it. We've been doing it pretty much every. Every Friday ever since.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: So I think I remember more specifically, it was you calling up and saying, like, they hired me to do events and we can't do any events. What am I going to do? I think maybe we should do a podcast. I'm like, that sounds good. Let's do it, man. And like, so we.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: I might have offered that background. Yes.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: I'm not sure. I think there might have been too some, like, where in the hell do I find, like, I don't even have toilet paper in my house, Tom. And you're like, that was our first conversation. Go to Staples.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: If folks want to go back to episode one, I think Chris talked about how he scored some toilet paper at Staples.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Good, practical, Covid advice. I know. I listened to that episode and talked about where you scored toilet paper at Staples. And then. And then we wondered about what the future would look like, whether people would be just talking on Zoom and not going to actual meetings or not traveling and not flying.
We didn't think it was possible. And yet here we are. A lot of that came to fruition, so.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Yep, totally. Yeah.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Shows you our good. The powers of our prognostication.
Not so great.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Not so great when it comes to not so great.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Rougher social issues. But when it comes to medtech, I Think we're fantastic.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: I think we are, too. I think we've got like, at least, or at least we've been around covering this industry long enough that we definitely have some good insights to share with people. And man, it's been awesome the six years.
I love this audience that we've built here. And just like everything we've done, I think this is the favorite thing that I've done here at Mass Device. And MDO is doing these newsmakers with you.
And just in case our audience is sitting here like, oh, my gosh, I just lost my favorite medtech industry podcast.
I do think even as you head on to the next great thing, but we're going to figure. I hope we figure something out over here. Stay tuned.
I would love it if this continued on in some form, but it would never be the same.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that. There's certainly a deep, deep bench here with you and Jim and Kayleen and Skyler and now Connor. So I'm sure you'll all figure something out. But
[00:06:19] Speaker B: let's do it, man.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Let's adjust our gaze outward and look at the medtech industry new market. What's the big news on the pages
[00:06:26] Speaker B: of mass device number five? We've got Medtronic.
They've hired the former CEO of ReCore to run their interventional cardiology group.
So. Wow.
And just the fact that she was in charge of the main competing system to Medtronic, Simplicity Spiral, and now they've tapped her to run the business that includes renal denervation, which is this, like, you know, Medtronic considers this a huge opportunity going forward for them.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Absolutely. And of course, Jason Weidman left to join Teleflex. He had sort of been the champion of renowned innovation and Medtronic before.
And.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: And that was Jason.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah, Jason Fontana has left as well and he was involved with. So. So there was an opening there. And Laura Barga, I mean, she joined.
She wasn't part of the renewal innovation story from the start. She joined in 2023. She'd been with Siemens previously, so she kind of went from big company to small company. So now she's going back to a big company. But it seems like a good match
[00:07:29] Speaker B: for her for sure. Yeah, totally.
[00:07:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: And of course, we had Helen Steve Rover, the new CEO of ReCore, on the podcast a few months ago.
And there'll be some good competition there for sure. Both, I think, are looking to apply renal renovation energy into or their denervation energy, other applications as well. Beyond the kidney.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it'll be good. And it's going to be neat to see what, what Jason does over at Teleflex as well. I mean, I saw he brought on Sean Salomon onto his board and it'll be.
Yeah, that's definitely something to watch. Is we're getting a little like former Medtronic crew, like, you know, building up over a Teleflex.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah, why not?
[00:08:10] Speaker B: What they get going. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, very, very cool. So.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: All right.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, number four on the list. We've got mine Ray there.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Speaking of, speaking of Pandemic. Huh? Okay.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, right. I know we got a good.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: It's bringing me back.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: It's like throwback time, man. We got Ventilator news, you know, and this is, you know, Mind Ray, you know, the, you know, you know, rolling out a new model and its hospital ventilator lineup here in the US the SV70. And, you know, they're kind of saying like, hey, there's like, there's been opening in this market. I mean, Phillips had all, all those huge recalls in recent years. I mean, Medtronic pulled out of that market.
So Mindray sees an opportunity to get in and provide kind of a workhorse ventilator for hospitals across the U.S.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: interesting. Yeah, obviously that brings us back. But looking at the record, Medtronic news number five, and we're going to skip. I'm looking ahead to number three and two. There's, it's just interesting that how much has changed since we did the start of the podcast in six years. I mean, Reynolds renovation is on the market. We're going back to ventilators. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a common story. But the next, the next item, another big change from six years ago once you roll into number three.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, the, you know, the, you know, the last, you know, over these years, like the, just the rise of surgical robotics. And now we've got Medtronics already in the US market with HU as they look to compete against Intuitive and DaVinci systems. And now they're kind of like doing like a side play here with their deal for Cornerstone Robotics. And our new senior editor, Connor Hale has this story out on Mass Device. Connor comes to us from the Fierce publications where he wrote about medtech for years. I mean, he's a great addition to our team. He's just, just already really impressed with the knowledge that he has of our industry, what he brings to us. But Connor is writing about Needham Company analyst saying this strengthens Medtronic's position, having Cornerstone investing 700 million in them and getting the right to distribute their Centire system across certain international markets. It allows them to differentiate what they're offering here.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: So Needham is basically affirming Medtronic stated strategy. And I think a lot of outsiders as well have thought it was a really shrewd move to invest 700 million in cornerstone and to distribute it across their international markets. So it's nice to be able to offer more than one robot. If, as someone said, if I can't sell you this, how about this? Does this work for you better? So it's good for sales folks to have that option.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Yeah, totally.
So, and then, you know, number two on the list. This is another, you know, thing with analysts. I mean, you know, city analysts downgrading Boston Scientific because they just see this, you know, recent, you know, you know, cyber, you know, attack, you know, you know, at Boston Scientific, it's just further, further compounding competitive pressure, you know. And, you know, I, I still remember you had some really good points about that cybersecurity incident. That just speaks to how as medtech becomes more digital, it also becomes more exposed. And so here we have Boston Scientific really taking a hit from having this global outage from a cybersecurity incident.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Well, this certainly takes that thesis even further. When I talked about, as MedTech moves into more connected health, it's more exposed to cybersecurity.
The issue with Boston Scientific was we were talking about how it actually impacted operations. And of course, if you're going to impact operations, it only makes sense that it's going to impact financials as well. And that's where I think Citi's downgrade is certainly telling. I think Stryker probably had a downgrade too, and it had its issues earlier this year. So it's not the first time we've seen analysts make adjustments like this. It'll be interesting to see if, if things like this ever hit Bond ratings and things that are more impactful.
So, yeah, we need to tread carefully in the connected health space.
And it's getting crazy out there, man.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: It is, man. Especially when you hear about AI breaking out of places.
It was bad enough when people were doing it. Now we got AI, you know, like rogue AI that's like, who knows what it's going to do?
[00:13:07] Speaker A: So, yeah, the only person I, my source of what I would do about rogue AI hitting my computer would probably be going to Claude, and I'm sure Claude's going to be in cahoots with whatever Rogue. And I'm just toast. I'm losing my bench of technical expertise.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Claude. Like, it's okay, Tom. Just embrace it. It's like just let it in.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Just in front of a bus. Tom, it's over.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: It's okay.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Okay, Claude.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Okay, Claude?
[00:13:36] Speaker A: I don't know. Claude says I should step in front of a bus. Claude's never wrong.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: I was running an errand last weekend and caught like the NPR thing. Wait, wait, don't tell me. And there was a convenience that something like that Bill Gates had written a 6,000 page report about the dangers of AI. He said, you know, so I just ran it through ChatGPT to get a summary of her and Chat said, don't worry, Bill says things are going to be fine.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Funny, because it's true. True. It is true. Should I be worried about this? No, no, no, no.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: You don't need to read that 6,000 page, 6,000 word essay.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Go watch some more TV. Go stream some more Ted Lasso. Tom, you'll be fine.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Don't worry about it.
We've got things taking. We got this. So yeah, it's fun.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: All right, what's number one on the new market newsmakers list? Chris?
[00:14:28] Speaker B: And finally on the list we've got Johnson and Johnson offloading the left atrial appendage it paid $400 million for nearly three years ago. This is like the, you know, the acquisition of Laminar. But they, you know, they had a, you know, they had a suspended pivotal trial like in mid-2025 and like you know, condor noticed like according to clinicaltrials.gov and you know, so it looks like JJ is kind of like like designed to offload this technology then though, you know, this was actually bought up by like a new venture backed entity that is led by Laminar's former CEO Randy Leshinsky. So you know, it looks like the, I mean J and J said they didn't decided I guess that they didn't want to keep, keep working on it. But the, the people who developed this, I, you know, obviously seem to think there's still like some, some good promise here. So they, they talk some investors into coming along for the ride. So it looks like we'll see what they do with it going forward.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's not a commonly used playbook, but it's certainly not the first time we've seen investors buy or the CEO backed by investors buy a product back that maybe they think the acquiring company didn't manage the trials correctly or some adjustments could be made to the technology.
So that's certainly interesting. I remember years ago seeing that with the Trivascular team with an agraf that had been purchased by, I can't remember whom, one of the bigger strategics, and then it was spun out back again and built into its own company. So it can happen.
It'll be interesting to see. I mean, it's obviously a hot space, one where more devices are needed. So I'm glad the technology is being given a second. I guess it would be a second chance.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Very cool. All right, well, great list, Chris Newmarker, what can we say? This has been a treat.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been awesome. And it's been just really an honor and a privilege, man.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Same here. For every Frochiano, for every minute we talked for the newsmakers, we spent about the same amount of time just kind of talking about kids and shooting stuff.
And it was a good sort of end of the week kind of debrief. So appreciate those conversations as well, Chris. And this will not be the last time we'll talk. I'm sure.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Won't be a stranger, buddy.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: All right, Chris Newmarker, thanks. One final time for this week's Newmarkers newsmakers. Now it's time for our keynote conversation with Dave Carey. He is the CEO of Perceptus Medical.
Perceptis makes the hummingbird ear tubes. We talked a lot about ear tubes and about Perceptus in the conversation, but I don't know if we got into the, into the actual name of the device. I think we did, but this is the kind of conversation that I think people will connect with on a personal level as a parent. So if you have any interest in learning more about the hummingbird ear tubes, go to hummingbirdeartubes.com and you can find more information there. All right, let's get this conversation going with Dave Carey, CEO of Receptus Medical.
Well, Dave Carey, welcome to the podcast.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: Well, thank you, Tom. Good to be with you again.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's great to talk to you. Full disclosure for everyone. Dave and I have had dinner a few occasions. We don't live too far from each other and enjoy each other's company for the most part. I do anyway. Dave, I don't know if you do.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: No, it's reciprocated, buddy. Plenty of conferences, too.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. You're a very loyal attendee to device talks and we're grateful for that. And you're also, I said this before, we pushed record.
You're one of the folks I think about when we Put out content.
How does this content sort of land with a guy who's been in the med tech industry for decades, has done, I think, every commercial job possible and is now leading a startup for the first time.
So I want to sort of draw from that experience and understand not only your story, but how you're applying lessons learned to running a company, Perceptus Medical, which also I think is a great medtech story because it's one of those typical medtech startups that's been around for a while, has a fantastic technology and it's just finding a way to work its way in, into the commercial sort of realm. And I know you're making some progress there, but let's first start with you, Dave. How did you find the medtech industry?
Why did you join the medtech industry?
[00:19:17] Speaker C: You know, my story is not too dissimilar from probably many other people in the space. I was a college athlete, loved competing, wanted to continue to compete however I could and you know, I was at the time there were a couple of different roles that I was offered from divisions of Merck and one of them was wound care and hemostats. And, and I decided to go down that route. And so I literally graduated college on a Saturday and I was standing in an OR terrified on a Monday
[00:19:54] Speaker B: wondering
[00:19:55] Speaker C: how did this happen?
But I never looked back. I mean, and since then, as you mentioned, I've been lucky enough to have every role from sales associate now to CEO, making huge strides and mistakes along the way, but it's been a great experience. So right out of college I walked in as a sales associate and just moved up the ranks. I went to school nights while I was a rep for B school, but ultimately decided I just liked being close to the action here.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: What was the first job in medtech? Who'd you sell for or work for?
[00:20:33] Speaker C: Yeah, so it was a division of Merck called Kelgon Vestal Laboratories. I still loved that job. It was a mid sized company and we had wound care products, hemostats. We had a full bag of all kinds of different products and if one part of the hospital didn't like dealing with you, another one would. So it was, it was a lot of fun. It was a great first job and.
But I think where things really transitioned for me was after that role I took a job with Boston Scientific and it was for an organization within that company that was creating the first stunt graft.
So the first AAA stunt graft. And the product never made it, but I was hooked on that kind of disruptive experience and sure it's great to be competitive and then you have like products to everyone else and try to beat them out. But I really found it rewarding to get involved with tech that was just coming in and that I could be the guy to help present and hopefully change some workflows, change some minds and ultimately in my own humble way, you know, hopefully make some changes to the, to the business I was in. And I've been really fortunate for that.
You know, from that experience I went on to be one of the first spinal cage reps and then Medtronic launched drug eluting stent and their first one endeavor in the early 2000s. And you know, just, it's been a lot of fun to be involved in disruptive tech. Most recently Stryker bring Echo in and around the northeast. So it's always been trying to bring something new, a new way of thinking about things and I, I seem to gravitate to those kinds of opportunities. Now.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: What do you look for in. Because you, you mentioned some, some really odd areas in medtech historically and you've been in some, I think intriguing ones as well like Invuity. I remember Invuity which was. Sure, yeah.
So when you're assessing an opportunity in sales, are you. And we've had this talk over dinner, are you looking at the technology, the opportunity, are you looking at the lifestyle? Because as you've told me, different specialties come with different lifestyles. If you want to sell trauma implants, great, but, but don't count on watching an entire movie because you're going to likely get called out during it.
What do you look for when you're assessing new opportunities in sales or what were you.
[00:23:07] Speaker C: I think that the first thing is the team. So I'd like to know, especially when you get involved with startups, the foxhole's pretty small, but even with large companies you're still part of a smaller team and you've got to make sure that you've got a great organization built on trust and just people that are not always like minded but at least want to run at the same pace.
I'm one of those guys where I run pretty hard and people around me tend to run pretty hard. And that's just something that's been a big part of my approach. And so, so most importantly I want to know the team that I'm on. But I'd say also it's really important that you have a belief in what it is you're there to do.
I don't care if it's a Big company or a small one. Medtech takes a lot out of you. It's hard work.
I think I understand finally why so many athletes gravitate to this space.
It's not because we like to sit around the locker room and, and talk about old glory days. But people that come to this business have to be able to put an exceptional amount of time in. They've gotta be patient. It doesn't happen overnight. And so it's clear to me now that athletes really gravitate to this space because they're used to committing themselves to something a little bit bigger than they are, putting the time in and getting it done. So I think the people thing is super important. And then just the tech and making sure you're excited about it because you're going to be talking about it all day. And if you're just talking about why your box is red and the other is blue, you're going to be bored.
And so I just, I feel like the, you know, having a tech that you believe in or, you know, or a product that's somehow close to you is, I think, think is important.
You know, I went during that first role with Boston Scientific, we went from, you know, what they called the Braveheart procedure back then, which is where they opened you up from, you know, essentially from the base of your sternum and all the way down and, and really just, you know, had to move organs out of the way to be able to work on your aorta to a small incision in the leg.
And, you know, you talk about what it. That made in people's lives, survival rates, recovery rates in, you know, a week instead of months.
These are important things to patients. And so, and they're still, even as advanced as we are, I think there's still a lot of great tech that's coming in that's making things easier for surgeons, easier for allied staff, nursing, nps, and ultimately better for families. All that. And there's still a lot of really great opportunities to go and have an impact in this business.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: That's great.
And just one thing I know you did, you had your own distributor company for a couple of years that was successful. How did that come to be? And how is that different than selling for a company? And is that something that you encourage other people to do it if they sort of want it? I guess. Do you get to call your own shots? Are you actually not calling your own shots because you have so many different things to sell? What's the experience like?
[00:26:32] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I mean, it's interesting, you know, I think that I, I enjoyed it at the time.
I think the other thing that Medtech has afforded me is the ability to live in different places where I needed to at the time.
At the time my dad was sick, I wanted to be closer to home.
In hindsight, I'm very glad I was there.
But, you know, the distributorship is not in. It's not an easy life. It can be very good and you are your own boss, but you're still reporting up to the companies that you're supporting and they have goals that they want to achieve. So it's kind of like having a board. You've got people coming at you from a lot of different directions, different experience, all wanting you to be successful and helping you and pushing you to that. So it was very helpful for me at the time, I think that. But ultimately I did decide to go and join Stryker after that. But that specific experience came about because I learned about that business from Invuity before we transitioned. And so for me, it was a really great opportunity to, as I said, get closer to home and build out, hire some young kids, copier sales kids and everything else, and give them some great experience and turn them on to their own med device careers.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: And I want to get into your work at Pristine in a moment, but you give a lot of thought to medical device sales training.
What's that experience like? Again, I've learned a lot talking from you. I didn't really appreciate how much work went in, how much additional education went into it.
What's your assessment of training today? And maybe do you see any things that need to be changed or handled differently?
[00:28:32] Speaker C: I would say that these days it's really interesting for people that want to break into med tech because there's so many different disciplines now that are in this space and somehow some way down range, I'll find a way to, to make a, make a profession out of this maybe. But I, you know, I feel that, you know, the career, you, you brought it up, a career in trauma sales is very different from a career in joint sales.
I've interfaced with all kinds of cardiology, pacemakers to stents to. And they're all different jobs. And I think even industry veterans, you know, we, we kind of lump ourselves into med device. But the truth is that as a guy that's, you know, for a lot of reasons, jumped from ortho to interventional cardiology to pacers to spine and all these different disciplines, they all ask something different.
And preparation for that is usually not starting until you've already Accepted the job and you're on the ground. So I do feel like people should do well to make sure they understand what they're getting themselves into, to spend time talking with reps that are successful in that space so they can understand what's required.
And I think that they'll be surprised and hopefully better for it and ultimately better prepared to do what it takes to be successful, knowing that before they ever step into the role in the first place.
A lot of people, I think, like one of my favorite interview questions, when people come and meet with me, and I'm usually not the first interview, I'm one of the last ones, and people I'll ask, you know, what competitor should we be concerned about?
And that answer, if they answer it intelligently, tells me that they've done the research and they know what they're getting themselves into. If not, and they can't name a company, then I realize that this person doesn't really know what they're doing walking into at this point, and it's a higher risk.
So ultimately, in Medtech, risk is.
The risk in hiring is strong because there's a strong burnout factor that comes with this, and people getting into roles and not really understanding them as well as they could to know what's required. And it's happened to me in several, you know, people that I've hired. It doesn't have to be athletics, Tom, but I'd want to know that someone has committed themselves to something. My other second favorite interview question, tell me about something that you really committed yourself to and what was the result?
And it doesn't have to be athletics. One of the most interesting people I hired you. You'd be amazed at the answers you get from that.
But one woman actually hiked the Appalachian Trail after she graduated college by herself.
And I thought, wow, the bravery of that as a young female, the planning that's required in that, and, you know, that's execution. That's planning and execution. Somebody doing that well is going to step into a territory and crush it because they're going to apply that same methodology that made them successful in achieving that high.
And so I think that it's really important as people are trying to break into this space, that we make sure that they understand what's really required from this, because turnover hurts companies badly in this space.
And again, I want to make sure that as we bring people in, we're responsible about it. People are excited about MedTech. They hear that it pays well, but there's a lot that goes into that.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: I Went to opening day at Fenway for 12 consecutive years. Would that get me the job? Would that be impressive or would you
[00:32:34] Speaker C: say, yeah, I think it would depend on where the seats are, probably.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: So let's move into. So you went from your distributorship to Stryker and then you joined Pristine Surgical, which is where we met. You were Chief Commercial Officer, first VP of GM and Marketing, then Chief Commercial Officer, Single use endoscopy. Another. Another hot area.
What. What were you at that point thinking? You wanted to get a C in front of your name at some point? Were you looking? You're putting an executive yourself on an executive track. How did you find your way to Pristine?
[00:33:07] Speaker C: No, you know, it's funny. Brian Lord and I actually live in the same town. And so I reached out to him because I saw the tech and I thought, this is really interesting. This is a problem that needs solving. And, and, and they had a very unique product and approach.
So I was close enough to sports medicine where I knew, you know, some of the challenges of equipment management and all of that.
And yeah, I mean, I, and so I had great conversation with Brian. We think alike on a lot of things. Very smart guy.
And, you know, we had, we had many great years together. We hired an unbelievable team. I think the, the tech is
[00:33:49] Speaker B: still
[00:33:50] Speaker C: evolving with proceeding for us and I'm not there any longer, but I would say that I think as you look back on your career, you say, well, how did I assume, how did I walk into that?
And I still think that single use endoscopy is going to rule the day. The technology needs to be able to match current visualization and, and make sure that you're meeting customers where they are, and it's going to happen. I think we were a little bit early, but I think in the long run that company's gonna be very successful.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Fantastic. So let's talk about where you are today. I mentioned the top. You're Perceptus Medical.
Tell folks a bit about Perceptus first and then we'll get into why you took this opportunity.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Sure. So Perceptus Medical is a startup based in Minnesota. We've been at it for a couple of years. We have a device, a platform that enables ear tubes to be performed in the office instead of the operating room.
Why do we want that? For really, a couple of reasons. We want to help kids avoid anesthesia when possible.
So there's been some really good research around the negative impact. And in fact, the FDA has issued updates on this that, that young children shouldn't be exposed to anesthesia, if you can avoid.
But now that I've been in this role, and I've been here for about a year, everyone has a story about ear tubes with either their kids, their niece, their nephew, their neighbor, and they're usually not great. And the truth of the matter is that these procedures are performed in the or they last about five minutes. It takes the same amount of time to get your ears pierced at the mall that it does to have your tubes placed. That's how quick these procedures happen.
And the fact of the matter is they've been in the operating room for a very long time. It's expensive.
Operating room is a constraint when it comes to timing and block time and everything else.
And anesthesia has been increasingly challenging for ASCs. And we provide an interesting release for that in that we're going to take that procedure and move it with a topical into the doctor's office. And so that's essentially our tech. We enable that migration from the operating room right to the office.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: And you mentioned, I personally have a.
I don't know if it's a story or not, but my younger son needed tubes. And I remember my wife was very upset because we weren't in the room with him when he emerged from his anesthesia. For some reason, they didn't tell us in time, and he understandably freaked out. And she was upset for a very long time about that.
So that's a. That's the story we had. I know you. You, when we talked at the start, you didn't necessarily look to. You weren't looking to be CEO of a company necessarily, but this story resonated with you directly. Why was that?
[00:36:48] Speaker C: Well, we have a good friend in common, Mr. Mullings. And, you know, it's. It was about six months before I joined or before I joined Perceptus. I hadn't heard of the tech yet.
And my daughter had ear tubes, and she came out from her procedure. Tube procedure went fine. She came out in what's called emergence delirium.
So she didn't recognize me. She didn't recognize my wife. She was inconsolable. Now I've got 20,000 pictures of my daughter in my phone, and half of them she probably took. But.
But one that's burned into my head is just her face and the fear that was in her face. And so, you know, I was not happy about that. I went at the ENT and said, what was that?
And so. Well, that's emergence delirium. It's actually in the consent. And sure Enough. It was on the back page and size 8 font of the consent.
But children come out of.
Often come out of general anesthesia in this emergence delirium, where they're completely disoriented and come to find out it happens about half of the time.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Wow. Really?
[00:38:03] Speaker C: So, yeah. So for 800,000 procedures that are performed in the US every year, that means 400,000 families went through what my family went through. And this is when I was still at Pristine having this conversation, and I was talking with Jill Mullings, and he said, look, I know you're not really a title chaser, but there's a CEO role that I'd like to talk to you about. And I said, okay, tell me more about it. And he said, well, it's ear tubes, but it's a different approach. And it's taking these ear tubes out of the OR and into the office.
And I said, will they avoid anesthesia? He said, yes. And I said, I'll take it.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: And I don't think you're real sure. Negotiator.
[00:38:49] Speaker C: That was great. I still remember because he's like, well, I suppose you should probably interview him maybe.
But, you know, again, we talked earlier about wanting to, you know, if you're going to do something, make sure your heart's in it.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:03] Speaker C: I've got something pretty personal tied to this, and I think that it makes it easier. You know, this morning I was up at 3:30 to catch a flight.
Those aren't easy things to do, but when it gives you a little extra added fuel to know that you're going to help families avoid these things. So it's not just the emergence delirium.
FDA issued an update in 2017 that said that kids shouldn't be exposed to anesthesia at all. If you can avoid it, and particularly under 3 or 4, 1, prolonged exposure, or a couple of short ones can actually cause behavioral issues downrange or learning delays.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:39:44] Speaker C: Yeah. And so one unknown fact is a lot of kids get tubes more than once. And so all of a sudden you're in multiple anesthesia exposures, just forgetting a couple of sets of tubes in one of your children. And then if it's adenoids, now it's three tonsils. And so the risk is real. And parents, I often say, like, our best parents, are informed parents. And, and, and the, the way that Google, and more importantly now, these days, Claude and chatgpt are lining things up. Parents are prepared, they understand.
And now they're seeking us out, which has really been great.
So this has been A shift, I mean, for me, and you didn't ask this question, but I'll offer it up.
For most of my career, my patients didn't have parents anymore.
So ortho, cardiology, these are the things that happen to 60, 70, 80 year olds. And so now parents are front and center in every conversation that we have. And so it's not just marketing to them, it's about making sure that you're positioning the entire company and maximizing the possible upside for families and parents and children.
And the family experience is really central to everything that we do.
And that's really how we differentiate. In the end, the tube that's left in the child's ear is the same tube or same type of tube that's left in a procedure that's in the or. So the results are the same.
It's about, about building a great family experience and hopefully reducing some angst, some cost, and just some time out of the entire thing.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: So you obviously took the job, you met with the board and it all worked out.
Talk us through the first year. You've been there for just under a year, I believe.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: How do you go about assessing a company that again has a product? It's been out there.
What does a new CEO do going in? And I think you were the second CEO, right? The founder, Steve Anderson was the first CEO.
[00:42:08] Speaker C: Yeah, Steve did a great job.
The great news is that the foundation of our place is excellent. So we have an outstanding contract manufacturer that, that makes products for some of the largest companies in the world. So naturally we get to benefit from a lot of their quality experience and such.
But I inherited a great team of people.
The commercial arm of it was not as supported and not as funded as it could be. And it makes sense that they would want to bring in a commercially oriented CEO at that point to kind of take it to the next level.
So. So, you know, I've been, I've been launching products for most of my life. I in looking at this tech and realizing what needed needs to happen.
There's different ways you approach it when you're Medtronic versus, you know, a company of 10 people. And we will never, no matter how successful I am at fundraising, but we'll never have a wegovy budget to go out and hit the airwaves and get to everybody. So how do you get the word out? How do you expand? And that was really the charter was to think about we need to be able to build sustainable growth trajectory and have a multifactorial approach to it. Not Just do one thing. But what are the things that we're going to execute on? Well, the biggest thing when you're changing workflow, in my experience, and I've worked in a lot of different disciplines, but they tend to follow the same trajectory. Where surgeons are initially skeptical, early adopters come in, they start to move the needle a bit.
But it's not until a surgeon really believes that this is a tool they need in their bag and that they ultimately start to realize they need to train residents and fellows. That's when you know your tech's really going to take hold. And that's really been our charter.
But early on, I think people are always fearful of change, and any physician is skeptical of change and wants to make sure that they do their diligence on it. In this case in particular with ear tubes, this is the number one procedure that an ENT does.
So the ENTs will look at this and say, okay, so if I'm, this is the procedure I do the most. Am I going to overwhelm my office? What are the tips and tricks and how do I do this? So there's just a lot of questions. There's a lot. The, this, the transition curve, the selling curve, whatever you want to call it, there's a lot of little constraints throughout that entire process, and peer to peer is huge. We used, we. We end up having doctors assist in almost kind of a phone, a friend fashion to answer the little questions that come up as people are thinking about how to operationalize this.
But what we have found is that once we build that and we build a program around a surgeon, and they agree this technology is something they want to do, we start small, but we don't say, move everybody. We say, let's pick some subsets, let's show you the value, maximize the value, minimize the risk of transition.
And ultimately our customers get themselves there and they start feeling more bullish on the tech. They understand the puts and takes of it, and they start to apply it more broadly. And that's been a lot of fun for us.
One trick I learned, and it's not new, but I think it was highly reinforced for me with Stryker and Mako was the idea of a programmatic launch.
And you're not selling a robot. What you're doing is building a robotic program. We said that so many times. I got tired of hearing myself say it, but it, but it was true.
And so you sit here and say, well, what do robots have to do with ear tubes? Well, they're still changing a workflow and building New habits and doing things differently.
And once you get that sunk in and a doctor really believes in it and wants to do it, the next step that you have to do is make sure that you're educating people that the doctor is doing this procedure now.
And so we've got, you know, obviously customer acquisition is very important, but we're engaging pediatricians and letting pediatricians know when we set up a program, everybody within 50 miles of that program is going to know that there's now a local option for office based ear tubes. We did a lot of research.
88% of pediatricians said they would move their referrals if someone offered an office based solution. And we're putting that to the test and it's proving out. And then finally it's parents. Once you get the pediatric path going, and that's a great group of doctors, then activating the parents and providing them resources so they can go and have follow that path from the pediatrician onward to the ENT and get that option.
So it's really a multimodal approach and all three are required, the ent, the pediatrician and the parent, to make sure that ultimately we're building some really strong programs out there.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: What's interesting is I would have thought that you would have approached parents first, pediatricians second, to kind of apply pressure and maybe ents third. But it sounds like it was reversed.
What goes into that strategy? I guess ents need to be comfortable to start with. They don't want to be maybe under siege or is that what you're looking to sort of disarm any resistance that they may come up with?
[00:48:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I think whenever you're putting a program together, whatever tech it is, you want to make sure that, that things are in place, that the doctors fully bought in, understands exactly how to operationalize it. And so in a lot of med tech, people use consultants for kind of, I guess I call them podium presentations and things like that.
For us it's more of a collegial phone, a friend type environment where we're going to give someone who's looking to make this transition a contact with someone who's already done it so they can help them see around some corners. We're very good. We've built a full workbook on all this. We have a plan for everyone. But no one on my team has MD after their name. And so it carries a lot more weight to talk with a physician that has, you know, that can just handle the small questions that come up. So that relationship's really important, I would say Also though, that the, the specifics around, you know, doing the pediatricians for the. Before the parents, I think you have to build the road first.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:09] Speaker C: And so, you know, an ENT that understands that it's bought in and wants to do it is the start. The pediatricians knowing that this option now exists locally is next. I have this vision in my head of, you know, of, of parents going down a path, but on that path to the, ultimately to the hummingbird starts with a pediatrician. And if you activate parents and they go to the pediatrician, the pediatrician hasn't heard about it.
That's tough. That's really tough. And so for me, I think the best thing that we can do as a small company with a small budget is get very focused in specific markets, develop and, and make sure that people have an amazing onboard experience. So if we're good at three things, it's finding the right customers, it's giving them an amazing onboarding experience, and then world class market development on the other side to make sure that patients are gonna show.
And, you know, we have determined after a lot of angst and a lot of work that if we execute those three things well, we're going to be successful.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: That's great. That's a great point. How many times you find something on Instagram that sounds amazing, and then you go to do a little research and there's nothing else except for this Instagram ad, you're like, it must be nonsense. I can't trust this. So building the road makes perfect sense. Final question, just tell us, what sort of results are you seeing and what's next for Perceptus?
[00:50:42] Speaker C: Well, we're at the fun part now.
You know, we're just starting that bend in that hockey stick and revenues are starting to climb. People are getting excited.
So it's not, I'm not high fiving yet, but things are going well, the team's great, we've added some great talent.
And so for us right now, we're just starting on that growth and experiencing all the growing pains that come with that. So. So for us right now we're looking hard at our processes, make sure that we're getting ready for what we think is going to be some great growth the rest of this year and next.
And it's just a fun time, Tom. And we go from these roles where we're wrestling with vac committees and red scrub caps and credentialing and all that, to working in offices where we're getting hugs from mom and fist bumps from dads and and it's just super rewarding work at this point in my career. A lot of the guys that I have on the team have been at this for, you know, for many years. And so it's just, it's, we're hitting a really fun time for the business.
And in that part where we just get that momentum, as I mentioned, we have a lot of major programs now saying, you know, we need to start offering this, we need to start training our doctors, which is, to me, the highest form of flattery and compliment that you can get in medtech.
So great days ahead. We're just starting to make that turn.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, it's fantastic having again one of my core medtech people in charge of one of my core medtech companies. I remember when you told me you got the job and I was like, that's perfect. I love Perceptus. That's a great story.
It's a great pairing. So, Dave, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast.
[00:52:29] Speaker C: It's great to talk with you again, Tom.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: Okay, that is a wrap. Thanks again, folks for listening to this episode of the Device Talks weekly podcast and of course for being part of this Device Talks journey. It's been long and exceptional. Exceptional, exceptional and memorable.
And I'm really grateful to everyone who's listened, everyone who has appeared on the podcast again, everyone who's been participating in our webinars and of course, our in person events.
You're all just amazing and I love telling your stories and I look forward to telling many more in the future. But please do check out the S3 Connected Health Device Talks Webinar Device Talks Tuesday's Webinar coming up on Tuesday with our managing editor, Kayleen Brown. Of course, continue to read the pages of Mass device and medical design and outsourcing led by Chris Newmarker and Jim Hammerand. And of course, follow us all on LinkedIn. Follow me on LinkedIn to see what comes next. Follow Kayleen Brown, follow Chris Newmarker, follow Jim Hammerand, and of course follow Device Talks and Mass Device as well. All right, folks, again, no words to express my gratitude other than thank you, thank you, thank you, you, thank you. And I look forward to seeing you and talking with you again in the future. Take care, everybody.
