Archives for February 2023

Top 80 Medical Device Conferences in 2024 – 2025

10 min reading time

Medical Device Conferences 2023-2024 is our most comprehensive list of medical device conferences, trade shows, events, and meetings for the medical device industry.
These are the conferences, trade shows, and events the world’s leading professionals attend to do business, learn, and build and solidify relationships.
We at the Medical Devices Group make every effort for the list to be the best and most complete.


If an event is missing, please add it for free:

  1. 8th World Congress on Controversies in Breast Cancer (CoBrCa)
    September 11-13, 2024 • Edinburgh Scotland, United Kingdom

    The 8th CoBrCa Congress will continue to directly address key and controversial issues facing clinicians in their daily practice in an effort to find solutions to unresolved clinical and therapeutic problems. Experts, from different disciplines, from all over the world will debate, discuss, and present lectures on topics in medical oncology, surgery, breast imaging, radiation oncology, pathology, reconstruction and more. At the end of each lecture, the participants will be provided with ample time to join the discussion.
  2. MEDDEV DAY
    September 26, 2023 • VIENNA, AUSTRIA

    The MedDev Day, organized by LS Academy will once again serve as a central meeting place for the medical technology industry, bringing together lecture forums, interviews, workshops and networking opportunities. The event will be 360-degree overview of the evolving context of medical devices, in-vitro-diagnostics, and software.
  3. American Medical Device Summit
    September 26-27, 2023 • WESTIN CHICAGO LOMBARD, CHICAGO

    Setting the standard on how the industry should connect and exchange ideas, the American Medical Device Summit provides insights and strategies to enhance the professional development of executives involved in the design, product development, innovation, technology and quality/ regulatory aspects of medical devices. Join the discussion with over 250 of your industry peers as we explore the challenges and opportunities in medical device innovation, regulatory harmonization, compliance, digital transformation and more. Hear first-hand case studies presented by our executive speaker faculty with extensive experience driving development and process strategy excellence. Walk away with strategic insights for industry, hospital networks and regulatory bodies to collaborate together to streamline processes, optimize development, design, decrease risk, improve speed to market, reduce costs and remain compliant in a rapidly evolving landscape. This September, we encourage you to join us for two days of thought provoking content and exceptional networking.
  4. Mayo Clinic Management of Highly Sensitized Multiorgan Transplant Candidates
    September 30, 2023 • Rochester, MN US

    Highly sensitized multiorgan transplant candidates are challenging for transplant providers. Currently, there is no consensus on assessment of these patients’ immunological risk, waitlist management or post-transplant immunosuppression. Growing evidence suggests liver allografts provide immunological protection to the simultaneously transplanted organs through different mechanisms. This course will review the most current clinical and experimental data, and identify areas for further research and allocation policies that will help transplant this difficult cohort of patients.
  5. RAPS CONVERGENCE
    October 03-05, 2023 • MONTREAL, QC

    As the largest annual regulatory-focused event, RAPS Convergence unites stakeholders and decision makers across all facets of the regulatory field for three days of professional development, discussion, and relationship building.
  6. MedTech Investing Forum & Global Capital Investor Conference
    October 04, 2023 • Hyatt Regency, Newport Beach, California

    Join 500+ Investors & Investment Attendees in person and online at the October 4th – 5th, 2023 MedTech Investing Forum and Global Capital Network Investor Conference at the Hyatt Regency, Newport Beach, California.
  7. Updates in Cancer Novel Immunotherapies 2023
    October 05-07, 2023 • Rochester, MN US

    Immunotherapy is a rapidly evolving and growing field that has broad reaching impacts on the practice of medicine. This course is designed to teach participants about a wide range of immunotherapies for cancer treatment, future directions in immunotherapies, and practical management of patients receiving immunotherapies. Immunotherapies that will be discussed include adoptive cellular therapies, checkpoint-inhibitors, small molecules immune modulators, bi-specifics, and CAR-T therapy.
  8. 2023 Ironman World Championship Medical Symposium
    October 08-12, 2023 • Outrigger Kona Resort and Spa at Keauhou Bay

    For Sponsorship/Exhibitor enquires, please contact the Conference Manager The 2023 Conference takes place October 8-11, 2023 at the Outrigger Kona Resort, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. Each year, over 200 medical professionals attend this prestigious event, which sells out each year. In addition to the conference, attendees also have the option to earn additional CME credit by volunteering in the Ironman® Medical Tent on race day.
  9. THE MEDTECH CONFERENCE POWERED BY ADVAMED
    October 09-11, 2023 • Anaheim, California

    The MedTech Conference brings the top executives and innovators from across the world (and the industry) together to explore critical topics, share visions for the future — and build them, together.
    Regarded as a homecoming for the global medtech community, this event serves as the incubator for the ideas, partnerships and innovations that lead to a healthier world. In 2023, the conference will take place in Anaheim, CA. Join us for face-to-face conversations that will enhance your passion for what you do, quality programming focused on today’s hot topics and the best networking in the business. Tomorrow’s advancements start with us — be part of the most prestigious gathering of medtech leaders.
  10. MD&M Minneapolis
    October 10-11, 2023 • Minnesota, USA

    Bringing together Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M), Automation Technology Expo (ATX), Design & Manufacturing (D&M), MinnPack, and Plastec offering the latest insights and solutions spanning medtech, packaging, automation, plastics, and design.
  11. MedFIT
    October 10-11, 2023 • Strasbourg, Fr

    With 650 international participants from 30+ countries, MedFIT is your opportunity to connect with international key innovators in the MedTech, Diagnostic and Digital Health sectors. As the leading European partnering event, MedFIT provides the ideal environment to help industry players to source early-stage assets, to facilitate the emergence of collaborative projects between big players, public research institutions, start-ups and SMEs, to increase licensing opportunities, to obtain funding and to facilitate market access.
  12. Digital Health & AI (SaMD) Seminar
    October 12, 2023 • Primrose Street, London

    Psephos and SEHTA bring you this seminar to provide an update on the current regulatory environment for software as a medical device (SaMD), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital health applications. With a particular focus on UK, EU and USA regulations this event will explore the current changes in the field alongside exploring practical challenges and opportunities that arise out of them.
  13. Advanced Breast Imaging: Current Diagnosis and Work Up of Problematic Breast Cases
    October 12-13, 2023 • Wynn Las Vegas

    Meet all of your MQSA CME requirements, as well as Breast MR CME requirements for ACR accreditation. We will cover digital mammography, breast MRI, breast ultrasound, tomosynthesis, interventional practices, breast cancer, lymph nodes, high risk lesions, BIRADS, implants, screening, risk management and more
  14. MedFIT
    October 17, 2023 • Virtual

    With 650 international participants from 30+ countries, MedFIT is your opportunity to connect with international key innovators in the MedTech, Diagnostic and Digital Health sectors. As the leading European partnering event, MedFIT provides the ideal environment to help industry players to source early-stage assets, to facilitate the emergence of collaborative projects between big players, public research institutions, start-ups and SMEs, to increase licensing opportunities, to obtain funding and to facilitate market access.
  15. 5th Annual Medical Device And Diagnostic Cybersecurity Conference
    October 18-19, 2023 • Hilton Boston Back Bay

    As technology continues to revolutionize healthcare, the importance of cybersecurity cannot be overstated. Get ready to fortify the defences of the medical device industry at the 5th Annual Medical Device and Diagnostic Cybersecurity Conference! This ground-breaking event is designed to empower you with the knowledge and tools to safeguard the integrity and security of medical devices in an increasingly connected world.
  16. DEVICETALKS WEST
    October 18-19, 2023 • Santa Clara, CA
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    Join us on Oct. 18-19 at the Santa Clara Convention Center to better understand how medical device manufactures, suppliers and innovators are finding success in a challenging economic market DeviceTalks West enables engineers and other professionals to find better solutions to the industry’s latest challenges
  17. 2023 Lymphoma, Leukemia & Myeloma Congress
    October 18-21, 2023 • New York City, NY

    Recognized as one of the most respected forums for industry-leading hematologic research and clinical case studies, the Lymphoma, Leukemia & Myeloma Congress is the meeting where interdisciplinary specialists convene to explore the controversial and complex world of blood cancer through debate, discussion, and networking. Experience 4 days of exceptional education, interactive networking activities, breakout sessions, and live Q&A with industry-leading experts.
  18. 4th Edition of Global Conference on Addiction Medicine, Behavioral Health and Psychiatry
    October 19-21, 2023 • Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    The global congress is well known for providing a forum to interact with people from all over the world who have dedicated their professional lives to helping people recover from addiction and return to their fruitful lives as early as possible. This worldwide conference is likely to be a massive event that provides an excellent venue for sharing knowledge on modern technology in addiction recovery, behavioral health, and psychiatry advancements. This is a forum where you will learn about practical, evidence-based solutions, lessons learned through life experience, and the most recent research results on substance abuse, dependency, gambling harm, and other behavioral addictions. The main goal of GAB 2023 is to bring together like-minded people including researchers, scientists, psychiatrists, neurologists, healthcare professionals, therapists, students, and caregivers to determine the future of research, which will affect the world’s future. The event will rewire your brain using cutting-edge technology and techniques that will enhance your self-esteem and confidence.
  19. Biosensors for Medical Wearables 2023
    October 23-24, 2023 • Courtyard by Marriott Boston Downtown, Boston, USA

    The wearable biosensors market has grown significantly in recent years leading to increasingly growing potential for medical applications and at home alternatives for patients. With growing applications and potential in remote patient monitoring, diagnosis, therapeutics and detection of disease, wearable sensors are attracting considerable interest due to their opportunities in better supporting patients, clinical outcomes and decisions. Furthermore, AI and connected technologies are furthering the potential opportunities of this industry. However, challenges including flexibility of wearable devices, the collection of clinical-grade data and advanced battery technologies still remain for the industry to overcome. This year’s conference looks to address these hot topics through case studies and industry insights.
  20. The Assembly Show
    October 24-26, 2023 • Illinois, USA

    Not only is The ASSEMBLY Show the perfect platform to connect with manufacturing suppliers, buyers and users of assembly equipment, it’s also a great way to learn how to do your job better and improve your business. As an attendee you will have the opportunity to:
    Uncover new resources that may help expedite your time to market by discussing your toughest challenges with experienced and skilled manufacturing suppliers. Explore alternative assembly design, products and solutions that are more efficient and cost effective.
    Evaluate the latest technologies and products in custom automated assembly systems, mixed model assembly, robotic assembly, screwdriving, adhesives, dispensing, plastics assembly, presses, conveyors, fasteners, packaging, workstations, welding, vision systems…and much more.
  21. PROJECT MEDTECH’S STARTUP SYMPOSIUM
    October 25-26, 2023 • Houston, Texas

    Early stage Medtech companies are expected to navigate the complex process of bringing an idea into reality, but very seldom do they have the expertise, experience, or resources to ensure success.
  22. 13th International Conference on GI Disorders
    October 25-26, 2023 • Nova Scotia, Canada | Hybrid

    13th Edition of International Conference on GI Disorders (ICGID-2023) is the event organizing by conferenceseries.com from October 25-26, 2023 Nova Scotia, Canada. The theme of this meeting is “Implementing Innovative Methods To Treat Digestive Diseases” where you can get a platform to share your ideas and research work to the world. Gastrointestinal conferences aim to promote continuous medical education and encourage a nourishing exchange of facts and ideas in how to deal with the disorders involving patients.
  23. Medical Imaging Convention 2023
    October 31-November 01, 2023 • OLYMPIA LONDON

    International Imaging Congress is where future-focused clinicians, technologists, entrepreneurs and investors on the horizon of healthcare come together with innovators and trail blazers in medical imaging technology. Join over 1500 of your peers and discover how bleeding-edge tech and artificial intelligence can dramatically transform diagnosis, providing a comprehensive view of patient health leading to more accurate and personalised treatment plans, while creating dramatic workflow efficiencies for clinical and technical teams.
  24. Pharmacovigilance World 2023
    November 01-02, 2023 • London, United Kingdom

    The Pharmacovigilance World 2023 conference will provide a platform for the participants to discuss, share and stay updated with present state of affairs in Pharmacovigilance and Drug safety, and how it contributes to the public health. It will also allow all its participants to interact with the experts, discuss the various developments, challenges faced and innovations in the field. Our Pharmacovigilance conferences are known for bringing the world-class leaders together to connect, learn and network. The conference will bring-forth the participants and the representatives from various fields of pharmacovigilance and drug safety under a common umbrella, and will provide them an opportunity to network with various industry professionals including pharmaceuticals, biologics, devices, CROs and PV service providers.
  25. Great Debates & Updates in Women’s Oncology | Complimentary CME
    November 01-03, 2023 • Virtual

    Great Debates & Updates in Women’s Oncology is a multi-day overview of the latest advances and clinical decision points in the treatment of breast and gynecological cancers. This conference is an opportunity to fill in some gaps we see in the oncology CME education landscape. A comprehensive overview of the most significant advances in the treatment of women’s oncology, as well as valuable take-home information, will be discussed. The unique format will include didactic presentations and lively and interactive debates, covering some of the most controversial topics in the field.
  26. SEHTA 2023 International MedTech Expo & Conference Devices, Diagnostics, Digital
    November 03, 2023 • Hilton London Tower Bridge

    For over 18 years, South East Health Technologies Alliance (SEHTA) has developed an excellent reputation for support of its 1,500+ members, especially SMEs, through its one-to-one mentoring, fund-finding, consultancy and events programme.
  27. 34th Annual Cardiovascular Interventions
    November 07-10, 2023 • Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, San Diego, USA

    Cardiologists are trained during their fellowship years in the latest techniques, technologies, standards of practice, and guidelines for patient care. However, the practice of medicine changes rapidly and the discipline of interventional cardiology changes dramatically each year. These changes directly impact patient care and require specific updates to physician practice. The primary purpose of the Cardiovascular Interventions series is to provide the practicing physician and cardiovascular care team with a concentrated exposure to the latest developments in interventional cardiology to positively influence patient outcomes via live cases and expert lectures and panels.
  28. Multidisciplinary Update in Breast Disease 2023
    November 09-11, 2023 • Naples, FL US

    This two-and-a-half-day continuing medical education course provides a multidisciplinary update in prevention, evaluation, diagnosis, management, and treatment of benign and malignant breast diseases, and high risk and survivorship issues. The course has multidisciplinary experts in their field presenting the latest, diagnostic, treatment and management options. Highlights include, genetics and high-risk management, breast imaging modalities, supplemental screening options for dense breasts, and more.
  29. Medica
    November 13-16, 2023 • Germany


    With over 4,500 exhibitors from 66 countries and more than 81,000 visitors from all over the world, MEDICA in Düsseldorf is one of the largest medical B2B trade fairs in the world. A wide range of innovative products and services from the fields of medical imaging, laboratory technology, diagnostics, health IT, mobile health as well as physiotherapy/orthopaedic technology and medical consumables are presented here. The extensive programme of first-class forums, conferences and special shows provides opportunities for interesting presentations and discussions with experts and politicians and also includes pitches of new products and award ceremonies.
  30. COMPAMED
    November 13-16, 2023 • Dusseldorf, Germany

    COMPAMED is the world’s leading platform for state-of-the-art medical technology. Together with exciting newcomers, the most important companies in the industry will demonstrate the products and technology concepts that will have a lasting impact on the industry in the coming months. The focus will be on innovative materials, forward-looking components and new services. In recent years, COMPAMED has developed into a global hotspot for complex high-tech solutions in microtechnology and nanotechnology.
  31. Pre-Filled Syringes & Auto-Injectors Forum 2022
    November 15-16, 2023 • La Jolla, CA

    Projected to hit $8 billion by the end of 2024 in the US alone, the market for pre-filled syringes and auto-injectors continues to expand at an impressive rate. Numerous advantages such as ease of administration, enhanced safety, reduced risk of contamination, and accuracy of dosing, have made PFS & auto-injectors attractive over other delivery systems. Growth in the biologics market, rising preference for self-administrations which use pre-filled syringes, pen injectors, and autoinjectors, are propelling the growth of the market. This is why you cannot afford to miss Pharma Ed Resources’ Pre-filled Syringes & Auto-injectors Forum. This two-day summit brings together thought-leaders and key decision makers to illuminate current and future trends in this key market.
  32. 3rd International conference on Gynecology and Obstetrics
    November 16-17, 2023 • Belstay Roma Aurelia, Rome, Italy

    This Conference provides unique networking and collaboration opportunity to promote your merchandise and gain your brand recognition and credibility. It delivers cutting-edge analysis on research in association with the intimate setting where attendees and exhibitors receive customized client service. Sponsors and exhibitors will benefit from great foot traffic and generous recognition.
  33. The American Conference on Clinical Trials and Regulation of Medical Devices
    November 20-21, 2023 • Orlando, Florida, USA

    The Conference is designed to be an integrative event with a wide variety of topics ranging from important regulatory updates to best practices in clinical, regulatory and quality of medical devices that will be presented by highly experienced professionals and technical experts from regulatory bodies, academia, and industry.
  34. Global Congress on Central Nervous System
    November 20-21, 2023 • HYBRID EVENT | DUBAI, UAE

    The CNS 2023 conference primary goal is to gather neurologists and all the eminent experts in the fields of neuroscience, neurology, and other aspects of human health, as well as students and scholars, to explore the furtherance of neuroscience. The major topics covered in CNS 2023 conference include neuro-oncology, neurosurgery, neurological disorders, paraplegia, dementia, psychology, brain disorders, spinal cord-related treatments and awareness, symptoms, and spine risk factors. The CNS 2023 congress covers all the latest innovations in neurology therapies, treatments, advanced neurological research, collaboration with neuro healthcare sectors,
    and so on.
  35. 3rd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
    GYNECOLOGY, OBSTETRICS AND WOMEN’S HEALTH

    November 20-21, 2023 • DUBAI, UAE | Virtual Event

    Gynecology 2023 conference highlights the new innovative technology in maternal-fetal medicine, gynecology oncology, gynecology endocrinology, pediatric and adolescent gynecology, gynecology surgery, Menopause, Midwifery, women’s health nursing and practitioner, sexual and reproductive health, urogynecology, operative gynecology, reproductive medicine, Obstetrics & gynecologic nurses and assisted reproductive technology and all Gynecology and Obstetrics related subjects.
  36. 3rd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON OTORHINOLARYNGOLOGY
    November 27-28, 2023 • Dubai, UAE

    With the illustrious collaboration of “International Society of Audiology”, “International Federation of ORL Societies” and “British Association of Head & Neck Oncologists” and with a great response and feedback which we have acknowledged from the participants of Otorhinolaryngology 2022, we are happy to announce our upcoming conference – “3rd International Conference on Otorhinolaryngology”, scheduled from November 27-28, 2023 to take place in Dubai, UAE. This meeting will explore recent researches and advances in the Otorhinolaryngology – ENT.
  37. International Conference on Obesity and Weight Management
    November 27-28, 2023 • HYBRID EVENT | DUBAI, UAE

    Obesity Conference 2023 is pleased to welcome all distinguished researchers, physicians, doctors, academicians, as well as all primary healthcare practitioners, bariatricians, diabetologists, and endocrinologists to discuss current trends in weight management, osteoarthritis, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure and other developments in these fields. The Obesity Conference is going Hybrid! Due to the pandemic or its potential effects on the economy, this conference will be a hybrid event (there will be both an in-person conference and a virtual conference). Reaching a much wider audience all across the region allows us to accomplish our aim to elaborate and develop Primary Healthcare as well as to broaden the contribution to the Healthcare community.
  38. 3rd International Conference on Cardiology (Hybrid Event)
    November 30- December 01, 2023 • Dubai, UAE

    With the grand success of the first 2 series of cardiology conferences, we are glad to proudly present the “3rd International Conference on CARDIOLOGY” scheduled from NOVEMBER 30-December 01, 2023 in Dubai, UAE. The conference mainly focuses on Cardiology and Cardiovascular disorders and therapies. International Conference on Cardiology meeting dedicated to Cardiologists and Cardiologyvascular researchers with the theme “Exploring New Research and Frontiers in Cardiology Care” for a change in society. The 3rd International Conference on Cardiology is an annual meeting of renowned Cardiologists as well as Cardiology committees. This conference is primarily focused to discuss the future of Cardiology, Cardiovascular Syndromes, advancements, therapy, and issues we are facing in the field of Cardiology with mutual collaborations and organizational development. With individuals from around the world zeroed in on finding a few solutions concerning Cardiology, this is your single most clear chance to achieve the best amassing of people from the mending focuses, Universities, Heart Associations, and so forth… All the conference proceedings and the full-length articles will be published in ACCSCIENCE Publishing (ISSN 1234-1234). Here the Cardiology Conferences 2023 provides an excellent global platform for professionals in cardiovascular health by organizing conferences, workshops, seminars, and B2B sessions in addition to interactive gatherings from all over the world with a wide range of discussing innovational discoveries to advance the aegis and medicaments of heart and vascular conditions.
  39. 7th Annual Medical Device Cybersecurity Risk Mitigation Conference
    December 12-13, 2023 • Virtual Event

    This course will bring together cybersecurity experts from medical device manufacturers and health delivery organizations to share best practices on how to ensure patient safety is protected. This event provides programming focused on addressing issues of shared responsibility, best practices for securing devices and data, and takes a dive deep into the complexity of maintaining products in the field all while ensuring compliance with new guidance.
  40. Diagnostic Imaging Update
    January 02-05, 2024 • The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch

    At the conclusion of this activity, participants should be able to: -Apply advanced techniques and protocol design in CT, MRI, ultrasound, and Interventional Radiology -Integrate state-of-the-art imaging techniques and applications into clinical practice. -Utilize advanced MDCT for abdominal imaging. -Describe recent advances and techniques in musculoskeletal imaging. -Apply quality improvement strategies to the practice of interventional radiology, with a focus on increasing efficiency, communication, and collaboration. -Describe the imaging anatomy and protocols that are necessary to arrive at a diagnosis of intracranial diseases.
  41. Niseko Mental Health Conference
    January 14-19, 2024 • Hilton Niseko Village, Niseko, Japan

    The meeting primarily focuses on mental health research, and its application in the clinical setting. Hear from renowned researchers and clinicians from across the globe who have been brought together by Australia’s own, Professor Patrick McGorry AO (2010 Australian of the Year), with the aim of collaborating to achieve better outcomes for people who suffer from mental health illnesses. This conference is open to all medical professionals and health practitioners who wish to improve their knowledge about mental health treatment and care.
  42. International Conference On Nanomedicine And Nanobiotechnology
    January 15-17, 2024 • Barcelona, Spain

    Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology have tremendous potential for tomorrow’s patient care in a broad variety of disease management, and numerous theoretical concepts are currently translated into preclinical and clinical studies. The fifth edition of the ICONAN conference brings together high-profile plenary speakers and world-class researchers who have successfully developed and translated nanomedicines over the last decades, offering a vibrant platform for oral and poster presentations, sponsor exhibits, and networking.
  43. Virginia Neurological Society Annual Meeting And Conference

    January 18-21, 2024 • The Omni Homestead Resort, Hot Springs, USA

    The VNS provides its members with a collective voice in matters that concern the practice of neurology and education in the field of neurology. Members are also represented at the state medical society level where legislative and regulatory issues are brought to focus in the area of neurology.
  44. International Meeting for Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH)
    January 20-24, 2024 • San Diego, California

    Every year the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSiH), hosts the International Meeting for Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) in a major city in the United States. Dedicated to healthcare simulation research and learning, the event provides an opportunity for “Simulation Champions” from around the world to come together to network with peers, learn from experts, and see the latest medical simulation innovations. In 2024, IMSH will take place from January 20 to January 24, 2024, in San Diego, California.
  45. Transdermal and Microneedle Drug Delivery Conference 2024
    January 22-23, 2024 • LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

    Collaborate with forward-thinking drug development and delivery experts to discuss case studies and real-world examples of delivery R&D, vaccine application, and diversifying capabilities.
    Transdermal and Microneedle Array Patches (MAPs) are one of the exciting fields and fast-growing in pharmaceutical development. Offering a combination of unrivalled potency – from increased community access, to consistent long-term delivery and diagnostic capabilities – this technology is at the vanguard of increasing efficacy and global access to transformative products.
  46. 2024 Telehealth & Digital Healthcare Management Summit
    January 22-23, 2024 • Bellagio | Las Vegas, NV

    This conference will explore ways in which providers can embrace this revolution and leverage telehealth and digital healthcare to facilitate prevention and early diagnosis of life-threatening diseases, manage chronic conditions outside of the traditional healthcare settings, reduce inefficiencies, improve access, reduce costs, increase quality, and make healthcare more personalized for patients.
  47. Outsourcing In Clinical Trials: Medical Devices Europe 2024
    January 30-31, 2024 • Munich, Bavaria, DE

    We are excited to welcome you back to the annual Outsourcing in Clinical Trials conference for Medical Devices. This years programme offers a fresh insight into the latest regulatory updates, techniques of running trials for a small company, the latest innovations and many more topics. With presentations and panel discussions on all the hottest industry trends and outsourcing challenges, the 2-day event promises to provide the European medical device and diagnostics community with an unmissable opportunity to learn and network to help them succeed in a challenging industry. The event will offer a fantastic space to network with your industry peers and discuss the latest challenges we are all facing post MDR. You will also be able to collaborate with the biggest trial sponsors, manufacturers, and vendors from the continent and beyond.
  48. 8th Microbiome Movement-Drug Development Europe
    January 30 – February 1, 2024 • Barcelona, Spain

    Join us at the 8th Microbiome Movement- Drug Development Summit Europe where we will cover the most exciting progress in the microbiome world, from expanded analytics and larger-scale manufacturing to the most pressing challenges from translation to regulations. In January, 150+ microbiome innovators will be united in Barcelona for the flagship meeting for European microbiome-based therapeutic developers. We are bringing together microbiome trailblazers across industry, academia and investors to share their insights across autoimmune disorders, oncology, lung disease, hepatic disease, women’s health and more! Now with new interactive sessions such as a reverse pitch opportunity, technology showcase, poster session and guided networking. This unmissable event will provide you with the opportunity to transform your drug development pipelines and meet like-minded individuals to help you along the way.
  49. Field Service Medical 2024
    February 2024 • Hilton San Diego Bayfront, CA

    We launched Field Service in 2002 and have been dedicated to supporting the growth of the service industry ever since. What started off as 100 people in a room discussing the future of service has become 500 senior-level service executives being inspired while learning and developing their company as well as their careers.
  50. International Endoscopy Symposium Dusseldorf
    February 01-03, 2024 • Maritim Hotel Dusseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany


    New imaging technologies: impact on advanced endoscopic diagnosis AI in endoscopic diagnosis, treatment, decision making and quality control
    Evidence-based treatment of early gastrointestinal neoplasia. Advances in cholangiopancreatoscopy EUS – from tissue acquisition to advanced drainage and lumen apposition Sustainability of endoscopic service versus infection prevention Prevention, recognition and management of adverse events. New endoscopic technologies
  51. Structural Heart Intervention and Imaging 2024
    February 07-09, 2023 • Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine

    Scripps\’ Structural Heart Intervention and Imaging conference is designed to provide a practical, cutting-edge, and live case-based assessment of structural heart disease interventions and cardiovascular imaging. The course will place a strong emphasis on the collaborative nature of these procedures across many disciplines within cardiology. Expert faculty will include interventionists, invasive cardiologists, echocardiologists, electrophysiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, cardiac anesthesiologists, and sonographers. Faculty will discuss clinical guidelines on patient selection, pre-procedural assessment, procedural tips, techniques, and challenges (including concurrent imaging) during the performance of the procedures and conclude with assessment of outcomes and future directions.
  52. North Carolina Society of Gastroenterology Conference

    February 10-11, 2024 • Pinehurst Resort, Pinehurst, USA

    The NCSG’s mission is to promote the highest standards of gastroenterological care and practice in the State of North Carolina and to educate practitioners, trainees and the public about gastroenterology.
  53. World Conference On Advanced Medical Research and Practice
    February 12-13, 2024 • Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    World Conference on Advanced Medical Research and Practice will occur from February 12-13, 2024, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This would be one of the leading conferences in Advanced Medical Research and Practice. The conference aims to gather scholars from all over the world to present the latest research outcomes and advances in relevant fields and provides an ideal environment for making new scientific collaborations.
  54. Mayo Clinic Surgical Pathology Update 2024

    February 15-17, 2024 • Phoenix, AZ US

    This course is designed for pathologists, pathologist assistants, pathology fellows and residents, and allied health staff with an interest in diagnostic pathology as well as surgeons and oncologists with an interest in new pathologic staging criteria.
  55. Cancer Neuroscience Symposium 2024

    February 28 – March 01, 2024 • The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA

    This 2nd Cancer Neuroscience Symposium will leverage advances in neuroscience, as well as advances in immuno-oncology and aging. This meeting will cover emerging areas, such as neuro-immune interactions, plasticity within the tumor microenvironment, and translational research. This meeting will bring together leading experts from across the fields of neuroscience, cancer biology, immunology, and the biology of aging, as well as oncologists, surgeons, neurologists, patients and patient advocates to facilitate discussions of exciting new concepts and developments in this rapidly growing field.
  56. Psychiatry Clinical Updates 2024
    February 26 – March 1, 2024 • Koloa, HI US

    Mayo Clinic Psychiatry’s flagship course, Psychiatry Clinical Updates, is aimed at providing clinically relevant updates for the management of psychiatric problems and their comorbidities across the lifespan. Topics include updates and clinical pearls on mood and psychotic disorders, anxiety, trauma, addiction, and perinatal psychiatry, as well as evidence-based psychotherapy and emerging pharmacotherapies.
  57. European Congress of Internal Medicine
    March 06-09, 2024 • Istanbul, Turkey

    We cordially invite you to the 22nd European Congress of Internal Medicine, ECIM 2024 to take place in the beautiful city of Istanbul from 7 – 9 March. ECIM 2024 will offer fantastic opportunity to explore the complexity in internal medicine – from bench to bedside, our slogan for this year. ECIM 2024 will bring together physicians, researchers, and experts from a wide range of specialties to share knowledge, expertise, and ideas on the latest advances in the field of internal medicine. The theme of this year’s conference, “Complexity in internal medicine – from bench to bedside,” speaks to the challenges and opportunities that face healthcare professionals in this rapidly evolving field. From the latest breakthroughs in clinical research to the development of new technologies and treatment modalities, internal medicine is a field that demands continuous learning and adaptation. ECIM 2024 will provide a platform for you to engage with these topics and come away with new ideas, insights, and skills that will enhance your own practice.
  58. STiR: Selected Topics in Rheumatology 2024
    March 07-09, 2024 • Las Vegas, NV US

    Selected Topics in Rheumatology (STiR) 2024 is a 3-day postgraduate course designed to update clinicians on a curated range of relevant rheumatology topics related to the busy rheumatology clinician across various rheumatology sub-disciplines.
  59. 6th Edition of International Conference on MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
    March 18-20, 2024 • Singapore

    It offers a glimpse into the future of materials science and allows researchers of all levels – from undergraduates to postdocs to Nobel Laureates – to share expertise, exchange technical information, and network with peers. The scientific program will focus on the most recent international advancements in materials science, with a particular emphasis on multidisciplinary research in both basic and applied domains. This would be an excellent networking opportunity, and it would foster lifelong friendships among fellow partners. We hope you have a fantastic conference, returning home with scientifically revitalized ideas and international colleagues.
  60. LSI USA ’24
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Innovations, Insights from a Seasoned Venture Capitalist

20 min reading time

Innovations, Insights from a Seasoned Venture Capitalist

Presented by Maurizio Vecchione
at the 10x Medical Device Conference – San Diego, 2022

Reading Time: 20 minutes

Maurizio Vecchione: It’s actually part of the Gates Foundation, and it uses a standard methodology to create stochastic statistical models that would predict the impact of a device that does not yet exist or an intervention that does not yet exist on a particular country against either seasonal or other factors relating to the disease.

This happens to be Madagascar. It’s simulating the presence of malaria and the impact on malaria on a new intervention relating to a next generation of mosquito bed net, and it’s a very simplistic, it’s a very simple problem, but this allows somebody designing an intervention or designing a product or designing to essentially simulate, using these kind of impact metrics, what is the likely impact that they’ll have? And at the Gates Foundation, these type of techniques are used to actually decide what to invest in, and so I’m telling you that because this is becoming now mainstream.

These kinds of approaches are becoming mainstream, not only in public policy but in in investment circles. So I run a venture capital fund as an example, and we’re using the same exact techniques to pick the problems we’re gonna be backing.

10x returns to San Diego, with Maurizio as keynote! Join us April 11, 2023.

Note: The following was autotranscribed by otter.ai and got probably 80+ percent correct without edits. Interpret accordingly.

As I sort of come to perhaps a 30-year point in my career, in medical devices, both on the research side, and on the development side. And increasingly on the investment side, and the policy side, I thought it would be good to share with you kind of a mega picture of some reflections on what I think is just around the corner from us, predicated by a series of innovations that are really very likely to change completely in the face of medical devices that may be not in today. Now, medical devices is a very broad term. So not everything that I’m going to be talking to you today is relevant for everyone in the audience, I’m sure, an enormous data. But I thought it will be good for you to sort of think and reflect a little bit about some of the trends that I’m seeing convergence rapidly. And I think maybe ushering in what I would describe as a new golden age of devices. You know, most of you are probably very intimately familiar with the impact of software, and technology, and increasingly machine learning. I hesitate calling it artificial intelligence. Because it really is not intelligence. It’s not artificial. Machine learning. Statistical intelligence, develops correlations, not necessarily causation. But we’re about to see the next evolution of that which will go into cognitive intelligence and reasoning systems, which are likely to really change the way machines and humans interface. So, I thought I’ll title this conversation disruptive medical devices.

And I’m not entirely sure whether this conversation is going to be completely realistic, or completely coherent. So please stop me and ask questions, feel free to disagree. I thought about throw up a series of trends that I’m increasingly seeing as dominating the discourse in terms of the evolution of healthcare and healthcare delivery, as well as some of the frontiers that are encompassed in this in the medical device space. There’s a lot of talk about precision medicine, people define it differently. I’m not sure there’ll be totally believe the role of precision medicine in the future of healthcare outcomes. But especially in areas like cancer, increasingly, positive outcomes coming only when you apply precision medicine, of course, the basic tenet of precision medicine is you’re going to use genetic profiling to essentially customize treatments and other procedures. And that inherently means there are devices involved, and athletes involved in performing their precision medicine calculation, but this is going to become much more than that. And, and devices will take a role in precision medicine is not only to profile and been patients, but it’s going to become the way drugs are actually developed. And I’m going to come back to that the subject of treating sickness versus treating wellness. Preventing disease before it becomes disease is also an increasing factor. If any of you track my old boss Bill Gates, you may have watched his TED Talk and 2015. And in 2015, Bill predicted down to the economic impact, that type of virus predicted COVID pandemic. And he was off by maybe a year in terms of when it all happened now, how did it predict it? He predicted it, because when you look at these issues of prevention, you can pretty much see what is going to happen to the etymology of disease. And you can make some very important public health conclusions from it.

The other sort of mega trend that I want to call your attention is this move to clinical care. Increasingly, your doctor is this, and the relationship of patients to healthcare is completely changed. I was at the breakfast table, I was sharing a piece of data, I happened to be on a panel that is advising the British Prime Minister on the future of the National Health Service in the UK. And as part of that, there was a recent study that was conducted that basically showed that the push towards specialized care is increasingly counterproductive on the outcomes of the patients. And a particular aspect of this study showed us 77 0% of all patients in British hospitals will be actually better off being at home and be treated in primary care. So, you know, in different pieces, statistics, I live in Los Angeles, and the west side of Los Angeles, which is a relatively affluent, maybe 3 billion people section on the city has more MRI machines than the entire combined Western European total of MRI machines. Does that mean that the average West Los Angelenos is healthier than the average Western European? No, it just means we have a much more expensive healthcare system. This idea of immediately moving patients out of primary care, out of wellness care, out of preventive care into acute and specialist care is really becoming an issue both from a cost and personal perspective, and from a outcome’s perspective. And then the big one, you know, the word diagnostic, has been around for a long time. But really, we haven’t had the devices that are therapeutic. With some exceptions, you could argue with cardiovascular care, and a few other things, devices are performing therapeutic function. But the idea that the device could replace a drug, for some kind of therapeutic aspect is pretty new. And I will show you in a minute the trends in the science and technology that are ushering this new era of devices becoming therapeutic. These are some of the topics I want to talk about. I skipped a few, but you see them there. For me to into that, I like to come back to why are we in the medical devices business. And, and this is something that takes me back to a 10 plus years of investing Bill Gates as money for impact in general healthcare, delivery devices, spaces, you know, increasingly, and we’re just living through a crisis in population had through the COVID pandemic. Increasingly, the impact of the medical technologies that we’re all involved with has the potential to transform the world.

As a matter of fact, there are some technologies that are incubating today that could completely radically transform the way we think about disease on such a scale, that it would be planetary scale. We’re also increasingly seeing a convergence between the health of the planet and the health of the people on the planet. And if you happen to have attended the last climate conference, the conference in Glasgow, you may have been surprised to see a major crisis by the World Health Organization and a 500-page report that is actually looking at the impact on healthcare from climate change. And of course, a lot of people will say, okay, you know, because the climate is getting warmer, and we’re going to have mosquitoes in places that we didn’t have mosquitoes. So maybe we’ll have malaria in places that didn’t have malaria. By the way, there’s malaria in Florida. At the moment. You might have heat strokes in places that don’t have heat strokes and so on. But it’s actually much more dynamic than that. If you think about it, the planet is a Petri dish. And we’ve found out the heat and so there is accelerated genomic and evolutionary pressures on pathogens and disease. And if you think that it’s an accident that we have a pandemic now, or if you think that it’s an accident that over the last 15 years, we had 22 pandemic potential bugs emerge when we didn’t have any for the prior 100 plus years. Well, let me tell you, it’s not an accident. So, this idea of One Health, the idea of zoonosis, and diseases that escaping from animals to humans, of course, I’m talking about effective diseases. But this has effects on a bit of theology across the disease space. I wanted you to think a little bit about the impacts of what we’re doing. And for a different reason, in addition to sort of being humanitarians and high mining, during the 10 years of investing almost $30 billion in medical devices for Bill, I discovered the correlation. And the correlation is from a business perspective, the biggest was the impact of our products and devices, the biggest source of performance, financial performance, and the outcome of the company so we build. Some of our biggest unicorns that come out of that effort were companies that achieve the highest human potential human impact. And so, I would argue to you as you think about these megatrends, as you think about the next thing, as you think about the evolution of your products, think about their impact, because high impact might just be a great business strategy to ultimately achieve global scale. And if you don’t think about the impact, then you have to think about impact in the quantitative way. You know, I probably have 50 business plans on my desk for new devices, new products, and every one of them started by saying, we are solving X problem, and it’s the most important problem to solve in medical history. Well, I’m not trying to say your disease is more important than that disease.

But you need a methodology to try to really assess the true impact of some of these products. And so my thesis around the strategy for high impact innovation centers on the concept of modality. And if you’re not in public health, you might not know what that means. But this was a metric of impact that was actually developed by Gates. It was subsequently adopted by the World Health Organization, and it’s in use to measure the impact of disease pretty much across the world, in Delhi stands for disability adjusted life years. And, you know, when you think about a disease, and when you think about a human, we have a sudden life expectancy, in that life expectancy is affected by the times when we are sick. And you could essentially calculate the number of years that we lose from sickness. And that’s the measure of the value. And I can tell you a recipe for how to ensure that your product is disruptive, and scale embedded, scalable, and that is to maximize the number of calories that you save, at the lowest possible cost per gallon. When you achieve that you almost by definition, have products that will transform the world. And so, the reason why I’m telling you all that is because you can incorporate these types of metrics into creating pictures like this, this is the entire global burden of disease. For the entire world. The size of each box represents the area, which box represents the impact that the disease has expressed in down, upon the left blue box is IHD, that’s ischemia and heart disease. And not surprisingly, you can see that, that’s one of your largest areas of impact. If you could eliminate it, maybe combining it with stroke. If you could eliminate it, you’d be close to eliminating the border of our normal bone disease expressed the tally. Some of the highest impact companies that I’ve seen execute successfully map the products into these title pictures and make decisions of where to put investments and where to put market strategies based on these actual and projected impact areas. Now of course, it’s easy to say eliminate ischemia heart disease is a high impact thing. But then the real question is, what do you need to do to make a difference in that particular box. Yes, what is the question?

Rob Packard: I have a little trouble reading the graph, but I think it says this is to 2017. Is that correct?

Maurizio Vecchione: Yes, my plot is a little bit dated.

Rob Packard: The diabetes portion is has exploded recently. So, we really need to look at this real time as well. Right?

Maurizio Vecchione: You’re correct. And it’s for that reason that I created in about eight years ago, I created a Public Benefit Research Institute called the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. It’s run by Dr. Personal Rafe previously from Harvard. Now at the University of Washington, if you go to ihme.org, or you will do a search around the global burden of disease, you’ll actually see an open database, yes, the world’s largest repository of tally data. And you can see an open database that you can actually use to make these kinds of assessments and not only you will use it, but every government uses it. And every multilateral uses it. Anytime you see a piece of data that says the coordinates of the prevalence of certain diseases X or Y, it comes from the ihme dataset. And they are constantly updated and it is real time. And in parallel, you can see off to the right there, those sort of intensity of the colors, they represent the speed at which a particular condition is increasing or decreasing, you’re right. It’s a very dynamic process, but the data is all open.

Joe Hage: I’ll just say, I’m just going to say that. I know you’re all fascinated with him. And I know he has more slides than we had a lot of time for. Go over. And I encourage you to ask him questions, because yes, he is fascinating.

Pablo Prado: I am Pablo Prado from Livivos. I was just asking, what’s the color code in your…

Maurizio Vecchione: Yeah, the column called the Blue is non-communicable disease, the red is the effective disease. And the green is other condition like car accidents. And again, the intensity is the growth rate. The darker ones are growing, the lighter ones are shrinking. Okay, and but again, this is just a snapshot, okay, you will get very different pictures, if you ask the question about this burden of disease for the United States, or for the Western United States, or for, you know, Africa. And you will see massive shifts, which eternal think about what that means, it means that different parts of the world, different populations are dealing with a different burden of disease that we are at, if you’re going to be designing devices, or designing for a new pack, you have to keep all that in mind. Okay, now, I’m going to give you a glimpse of how far you can take this. This is out of another institute that we created a Gates, it’s actually part of the Gates Foundation. And it uses the stallion methodology to create stochastic statistical models that will predict the impact of a device that does not yet exist. Or an intervention that does not yet exist on a particular country against either seasonal, or other factors relating to the disease, this happens to be Madagascar, it’s simulating the presence of malaria and the impact on malaria or a new intervention relating to the next generation, mosquito bed net. And it’s a very simplistic, it’s very simple problem. But this allows somebody designing an intervention or designing a product or design to essentially simulate using these kinds of impact metrics, what is the likely impact that they’ll have? And at the Gates Foundation, these types of techniques are used to actually decide what to invest in. And so I’m telling you that because this is becoming now mainstream, these kinds of approaches are becoming mainstream, not only in public policy, but in investment circles. So, I run a venture capital fund is an example and we’re using the same exact techniques to pick the province we’re going to be backing. And again, with a desire to maximize the impact. Okay…

Joe Hage: I’m just close enough. If you go back to, I was, one more place. I was intrigued because I was watching the day count. Yeah. And it went red where it was most intense to bluer and I was assuming that was the positive impact of your intervention, but then we’re ready again for blue again.

Maurizio Vecchione: Yeah, you’re actually see because it happens to be talking about malaria, there is a seasonal factor due to the fact that malaria is spread by mosquitoes and as the wet season, Madagascar, there is a climate and weather component to the measurement of this impact. And that’s why you need very sophisticated simulation. It’s not just the presence of the intervention, but it’s what’s happening to the disease all in the dynamic fashion.

David Giles: Got a question, Dave Giles from Battelle. Going back to the terminal boxes, a lot of those are lifestyle related. So, does this mean that we are misallocating resources as a society by focusing on medical devices as or pharmaceuticals as a therapy, versus treating the lifestyle?

Maurizio Vecchione: Perhaps, that’s why I want you to see this, because when you start looking at these kinds of pictures, then you can ask some fundamental question whether you are on the product development side, and you need to think about the impact of the usability or the positioning of your product. You know, and it goes back to the comment I said, at the beginning, when people start talking about prevention, you know, you might have a much higher impact on the world preventing some of this disease with lifestyle. By the way, that doesn’t mean devices are not important. One of the most successful areas of implementation of devices is behavioral therapies that are actually looking at those kinds of implementation. The reason why I want you to think in terms of impact, first, I want you I’m advocating is because I think it will get you to develop the strategies that are the most impactful and most effective at the end. And I think, by the way, that concept affects any area that you’re involved, whether it’s regulatory, whether it’s product development, whether it’s research, or whether its business.

Rob Packard: My name is Rob Packard, I think that’s exactly the right question to ask are we misallocating resources? Put it in the context of FDA submissions, which is what I specialize in. When we have clients with an innovative technology, they automatically think, Oh, this is a breakthrough device designation. In the requirements for a breakthrough device designation, they ask for is what life-threatening disease are you treating with this device? And where’s your clinical data for this? But one way to twist his show, it really has more impact on society would be? What is your daily impact?

Maurizio Vecchione: Absolutely. And again, when you start thinking about at the level of quantitation of valleys is you know, you have to sort of realize that I’ll give you an example. During cancer, of course, it has a big dally impact. Okay, but is anyone most likely to achieve that? By itself? Probably not, it needs to live inside a continuum that will in aggregate, contribute only maybe one specific type of cancer or one stage of the cancer, etc. The devil is in the detail. And when you actually start translating the value of innovation that I saw, you need to really ask the question, what are the gaps that science and technology hadn’t filled? That causes this to be such a big box? Okay, and maybe that the answer is behavioral, or lifestyle, okay, or a combination of factors. And then by the time you get to the FDA, and by the way, I’m a consultant with a number of the FDA groups right now on this very topic, because they need to be equipped to be able to assess the impact and it gets very specific. That’s why we went through the trouble of Gates to actually build sophisticated models that could give us a prediction on the specific intervention, the specific product in a specific geography in the context of whatever disease, you’re tracking. Now, this is over the top sophisticated and against we had 200 people developing state of the art, you know, statistical and predictive models to do this kind of things. But you can do a quick and dirty version of this, that I actually have in all of the companies that I’ve invested in, we tried to drive a methodology inside the management team thinking. As we now sort of take these impacts, and we started thinking about where and what can we do with devices to try to drive these impacts, you know, I like to think in terms of cost, and ease of use as sort of a parameter space.

And what has happened with the introduction of technology, as well as all of the revolutions around omics and other sort of biological sciences, life sciences, really the emergence of system biology, is you’ll be able to take things that were historically high cost and historically difficult to use require physicians or physician radiation to utilize and they’re slowly moving to the point of care, which means that moving up the axis of ease of use and now abandoned dramatically come down in costs. And so, the yellow box there, which really is the thing you need to move care outside of the hospital setting or the high-end setting, and move it into the customer, the customers hand, the home. And the decentralized setting is one of the key frontiers we’re seeing in devices. And I’m going to just leave you with a couple of examples that I consider case studies on how that evolution is occurring. This is a premium product not yet on the market, but it is already in front of the FDA. It happens to be a company that I incubated in my current research effort. And it’s intended to address a number of those big boxes that you saw before. Specifically, it’s focusing on ischemia, heart disease, and stroke. And what you’re seeing is a wearable device that is, probably if the clinical data supports, it will shape up to be the best stroke detector. And it’s entirely available as a point of care devices automated. This is a device that can look inside your head, and actually determine the very precisely the blood flow patterns. And can tell you if you have a stroke, where you have a stroke in approximately 60 seconds. And it’s intended to dramatically affect the way stroke care is provided. Because today, when an ambulance comes, if they suspect that you have a stroke, it’s based on visual interpretation of certain symptoms and a scale.

And chances are, the ambulance is going to take you to the nearest hospital, and the nearest hospital may not be equipped to do procedures that could come back to me, which is the thing that is going to save your life if you have a large vessel occlusion stroke. And if you get to that thrombectomy, after about two hours on the answers to stroke, your outcomes are very, very poor. Which is why stroke is such a big box in that valley better than ever before. On the other hand, if he gets you to a hospital that can do that dramatically within that two-hour magic window, when you are going to be almost completely recovered. And so, this is a device that ultimately will be in every ambulance. It has a cost because it’s slipstream behind consumer electronics, product lines, that is sub $500. And it’s an automatic way of deciding what kind of stroke you have, and where do you need to be taken. This is an example but here’s where some of the magics that’s happening. Well, we can see inside your brain with a device like this, and it’s using a new technology called harmonic excitation.

But it turns out, we can also not only see the neurons, but we can poke the neurons. And so, this is a device that utilized in a slightly different way becomes therapeutic. And some of the indications that are currently in front of the FDA are neuropsychiatric disease, therapeutic for Alzheimer, and therapeutic for breakers. And it’s because a device that can essentially reach inside your brain and touch those neurons and create harmonic excitations has the ability to do cell lysis on cancer and has the ability to do neuro stimulation on neuropsychiatric disease. And it’s all a wearable piece of product. Now, there are techniques to do these kinds of things. Today, they involve roomful of equipment, and hundreds of 1000s of dollars per see. And patients having to do extenders six times a week, visiting hospitals, that can now all come to a sub-treatment, automatic treatment at home. This is an example of what I mean when you start thinking in terms of the problem areas. And you start thinking about the convergence of these technologies, what can be achieved in some of the technologies that are making these kind of things possible, listed right on here, the idea that you can incorporate the advances in omics with advances in tissue engineering and cell biology with personalized constructs, including the ability to create personalized disease models, and so called organs on a chip, all combined into personalized biomaterials in turn enable the construction of these devices that are the sort of highly convergent capabilities. And to give you a separate case study, I’ll tell you a little bit about the work that Terasaki institute is doing on organs on a chip.

Joe Hage: I’d like to ask about that. Who is that? Is that a company you’ve founded?

Maurizio Vecchione: No, the Terasaki Institute is a non-profit, loosely affiliated with UCLA. It runs a research center that we’re pioneers on Dr. Porter Sack a pioneer in transplantation. And they are now developing a lot of personal medicine, technology as a research institution.

Joe Hage: How did you become involved with that? How did that transition from what you were doing to this? So how did you become involved with it?

Maurizio Vecchione: Absolutely, Seattle, my real home. I was in LA and the Terasaki Institute is a fantastic place that is doing really leading-edge research. It’s a good place for me to bring some of my academic research and I focus on helping them develop a research program that is ultimately highly translatable and can spawn company. NICU Terasaki is a research center at some incubator, and accelerator.

Joe Hage: I’ll say that the end to celebrate, I made the executive decision on cutting it in coffee break, so we can hear and speak some more, right.

Maurizio Vecchione: And I’m almost done, you may have heard of assays that mimic organs and an ordinary behavior. But increasingly, you can create assets that mimic human disease, such as cancer and you can integrate those into other in vitro models that can mimic metabolic functions and other functions in the competence of optimizing drug treatments or discovering drugs. And because this is a human, the translation from model to reality is dramatically better. And this is what I’m showing you here is the future of drug discovery, in the translation for most animal models to humans, is less than 7% for drugs, which is why it costs so much to development, new drug and many fail, in later stage, you can kind of skip all that, and go directly into these sorts of personalized models.

And, you know, you can put these things inside microfluidic circuits that can mimic function, but more importantly, produce data in real time. Think of this as a organoids bio reactor that are creating living human organs and are integrating them with living human disease. And you can study those interactions in real time using these kinds of systems. And to give you a sense of where the tissue engineering has gone, this is artificial heart tissue, you can see it naturally starts pulsing and you can look at cardio toxicity. And finally, individual assays using this kind of technology. And, and we can do this from liver, and look at metabolic functions. More importantly, they do this for the immune system, and studying things like cancer immunology directly onto this onshore construct. As you can imagine, when you combine this with big data, when you combine this with genomics and personalized medicine, we are now at the point that places I can be honest, if you’re a cancer patient, you’ll be able to go inside MD Anderson, they will take a biopsy of your cancer, that will create living organoids, that they’ll put aside machines that can generate essentially hundreds of 1000s of replica. And they will test every chemotherapy drugs across for your specialized treatment. And they will do that in a matter of days.

And the outcome changes when you do that is the difference between a one size fits all treatment to a highly responsive, specific treatment. And that’s what we’ve looking at this for the future, new drugs, discovery. These are devices that are becoming tools for drug discovery, as well as they’re becoming therapeutics by themselves. And this is just part of a recently published study, where we actually predicted using this vitro construct, we predicted some of the most spectacular cardiovascular drug failures. And it couldn’t be done in vitro at the very beginning. Because we could see in the living organoids the cardiac toxicity that they weren’t so awesome here, what I hoped of these years.

Joe Hage: In more than two years. I’m wondering, you inspired, and people want to get that guy’s contact information. I know. How do you choose which of that many projects to work on first? How do you make a choice when your time is limited?

Maurizio Vecchione: I use that impact metric. So yes, some permutation of that concept, basically all you could spend your life chasing any one problem. And I’m telling you if you chase the high impact problem and if you look, find the problem in front. That’s the other issue, especially research, I see all the time researchers that have made a breakthrough. And then they ask the question, we’re going to do this. And some of our most successful programs can when we submit the problem, and we define the problem, and we take scientists from an interdisciplinary area and put them in a room saying, here’s the problem we can solve. Okay, if you solve that, we have a business, we have a funding, we have other things to really allow for this. And that idea of doing problem first development, you’ll be surprised how few people actually do.

Jan Gates: A quick question, sounds a little bit strange, I’m Jan Gates from PackWise Consulting. But 23 years ago, there were doctors trying to do what you were talking about with the cell technology in individualized chemotherapy and everything. And they were banned from medical practice. How did you get pass that with the FDA and the doctors and stuff.

Maurizio Vecchione: It’s the predictive value, you know, you can do subculture and look at drug susceptibility of the individual cells. And that is predictive to the limited extent, drug companies do that all day long. Physicians may not be necessarily doing that, but within drug discovery industry, that’s one of the key techniques. I think the understanding of biology, Cell Biology system biology, when you’re looking at something like that cardiac tissue is showing you another discipline that is also highly disrupted called tissues engineering, because the functioning of the cardiac tissues, not just subsets. When you go back to the example of the neuro stimulation technology, the functioning of a technology is not just based on sub-neurons, it’s based on the entire coexistence of those multiple cell types in a living tissue. And that’s why the technology has evolved to really replicate the complex living organoids that exercise and physiology that is associated with those. It’s only at that point that you also gaining predictive value. And in fact, that these technologies are now becoming common place will allow us to simulate it like there are machines that literally have this in the box.

Joe Hage: Please, thank my fascinating friend Maurizio Vecchione.

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