Medtech Hot Takes of July
These were among the most thought-provoking quotes we heard from medical device and diagnostics professionals in July.
July 26, 2022
Ruby Gadelrab is the CEO and founder of M Disrupt, a company that has positioned itself as the bridge between technology and healthcare to help the most impactful digital health products make it to market quickly.
Gadelrab guest starred on Episode 44 of Let's Talk Medtech, a podcast for the medtech industry. During the episode, hosted by MD+DI Editor-in-Chief Omar Ford, Gadelrab talked about the challenges of raising venture capital funds if you're in a minority group.
She shared some alarming statistics: 76% of the VC partners are white men, while women account for just 5% of VC partners in a firm.
"The problem isn't just who is in the room, the problem is who's getting funded, too," Gadelrab said. "Women make up 51% of the population, 80% of the healthcare decisions, and guess how much funding they got last year? 2%. And black founders got 1.4%, black women got 0.27% of all venture dollars. ... That is outrageous ... We are not representing the talent of the industry, we’re not representing diversity at any level. What I want to see is that we stop having conversations and we start taking action."
Specifically, Gadelrab said she wants to see minority groups better represented in leadership positions.
"As companies, we are reporting out our metrics around revenue, growth profits, click-through rates. Why is it not a standard process for us to be held accountable for reporting our diversity metrics?"
She also wants to see every person who represents a minority group and makes it to a leadership position pull up all the people of minority that they can find.
"We have to use our platform because people recruit and create opportunities for people like them. That is why we have to get minority groups into leadership positions," Gadelrab said. "And then, I really would like us to be thinking actively and intentionally about how we build the health products of the future, and you can only do that if you have representation at the table."
Amazon shook things up in July with its $3.9 billion bid for One Medical, a national primary care organization described as "human-centered" and "technology-powered."
“We think healthcare is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention. Booking an appointment, waiting weeks or even months to be seen, taking time off work, driving to a clinic, finding a parking spot, waiting in the waiting room then the exam room for what is too often a rushed few minutes with a doctor, then making another trip to a pharmacy – we see lots of opportunity to both improve the quality of the experience and give people back valuable time in their days,” said Neil Lindsay, SVP of Amazon Health Services. “We love inventing to make what should be easy easier and we want to be one of the companies that helps dramatically improve the healthcare experience over the next several years. Together with One Medical’s human-centered and technology-powered approach to healthcare, we believe we can and will help more people get better care, when and how they need it. We look forward to delivering on that long-term mission.”
If you ask Dave Hixson what it’s like to create new medical devices in the Zoom era, the Medtronic engineer isn’t going to sugar coat it for you.
“I’m not going to fool myself or anybody else into believing that it’s not different,” Hixson, VP of R&D for Medtronic's surgical innovations business unit, told MD+DI in an exclusive interview. “I think we’re doing well, I think we’ve kept our pace going, but it’s an awful lot harder to get the same level of truly innovative creative thought.”
LabCorp has developed a Neurofilament Light Chain (NfL) blood test will allow doctors to identify and verify signs of neurodegenerative disease, enabling physicians to provide a more effective and efficient path to diagnosis and treatment for patients. Elevated NfL levels signal neuronal injury, whether from diseases like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s, or brain injury, such as concussion.
The NfL test brings Labcorp to the forefront of the recent changes that are occurring in neurology, said Joseph Volpe, neurology business segment and discipline director at Labcorp.
The NfL test brings Labcorp to the forefront of the recent changes that are occurring in neurology, said Joseph Volpe, discipline director for LabCorp's neurology business segment.
NfL isn’t a newly discovered biomarker, and it has been widely studied in research settings. However, this is one of the first times a company has developed a commercial test around the biomarker, Volpe said. He pointed out that there were a few reasons why Labcorp was one of the first companies to move forward with a test using the NfL biomarker.
“Just because something is being well-studied in the literature and doctors are very familiar with it, doesn’t necessarily translate into a clear path for commercialization,” Volpe said. “So, a lot of times what must happen is a lot of nuanced negotiation with a lot of suppliers who produce these types of reagents in order to make sure deals can be made such that everyone is happy to get a product out of the door.”
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled its 2023 payment proposal, which could impact some medical device companies and sectors, either for better or for worse. The proposed rule is followed by a public comment period before the agency releases a final rule, which is expected by early November.
In a Nov. 8 report, Ryan Zimmerman, a medtech equity research analyst at BTIG, noted a number of what he called "potentially market-moving proposals" in the surgical glaucoma and advanced wound care spaces.
In the advanced wound care space, CMS is proposing a meaningfully different reimbursement structure for "skin substitutes"
"CMS is proposing to no longer pay separately for skin substitutes under the ASP+6% methodology and move all skin substitutes to a practice expense methodology that would account for the skin substitute as part of the RVU assigned to the application and procedures performed. Essentially the skin substitute would be bundled into a procedure code."
Further explaining the impact of this proposed change in advanced wound care, Zimmerman said the treatment of chronic wounds is highly variable between patients, meaning that a single procedure or a series of procedures in a fixed payment model may not be enough to facilitate closure and/or healing of a given wound.
"...Advanced wound care is a challenging and heterogeneous field among providers and patients, but if physicians (regardless of specialty) have to bear the costs of added treatments or products because CMS assigns a rate that doesn't fully compensate for care, it will be tough to see the industry make advances," Zimmerman wrote.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled its 2023 payment proposal, which could impact some medical device companies and sectors, either for better or for worse. The proposed rule is followed by a public comment period before the agency releases a final rule, which is expected by early November.
In a Nov. 8 report, Ryan Zimmerman, a medtech equity research analyst at BTIG, noted a number of what he called "potentially market-moving proposals" in the surgical glaucoma and advanced wound care spaces.
In the advanced wound care space, CMS is proposing a meaningfully different reimbursement structure for "skin substitutes"
"CMS is proposing to no longer pay separately for skin substitutes under the ASP+6% methodology and move all skin substitutes to a practice expense methodology that would account for the skin substitute as part of the RVU assigned to the application and procedures performed. Essentially the skin substitute would be bundled into a procedure code."
Further explaining the impact of this proposed change in advanced wound care, Zimmerman said the treatment of chronic wounds is highly variable between patients, meaning that a single procedure or a series of procedures in a fixed payment model may not be enough to facilitate closure and/or healing of a given wound.
"...Advanced wound care is a challenging and heterogeneous field among providers and patients, but if physicians (regardless of specialty) have to bear the costs of added treatments or products because CMS assigns a rate that doesn't fully compensate for care, it will be tough to see the industry make advances," Zimmerman wrote.
Here is a look back at the most thought-provoking, inspiring, and conversation-starting statements we heard from industry professionals and thought leaders during the month of July.
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