Your Picks for Top 5 Medtech CEOs

We asked you to cast your vote for the top medical device CEOs and here's the list of five candidates we ended up with. We invite you to vote one last time to help pick the winner from the list.

Qmed Staff

Omar Ishrak, Medtronic

In between the time that Omar Ishrak took over as Medtronic's CEO in June 2011 and the present, the company's stock has nearly doubled--from roughly $38 per share to the $75 range it is trading at this month. He has helped elevate the status of Medtronic, already the biggest pure-play device firm, into an industry juggernaut through the nearly $50-billion acquisition of Covidien. The merger was the largest that the device industry has ever seen. 
 

David Dvorak, Zimmer

Leading Zimmer since 2007, David Dvorak was promoted to the position of president and CEO after a stint as chief legal officer. Dvorak has also been the chair of AdvaMed since March 16, 2012, where he has worked to repeal the medical device excise tax and has collaborated with FDA on the most recent user fee agreement. Dvorak is the main architect behind Zimmer's acquisition of Switzerland-based Centerpulse AG and its pending acquisition of Biomet.
 

Michael Mussallem

In 2000, the L.A. Times published a piece titled "Irvine's Edwards Lifesciences Bullish on the Eve of IPO." It has reason to be: its stock was then trading at about $7 per share. It is now worth about $133. Michael Mussallem has led the company since it was spun out of Baxter, turning a company into a leader in the heart valve niche. Most recently, Edwards was the first company to commercialize transcatheter aortic valve replacement technology in the United States in 2011.
 

Alex Gorsky, Johnson & Johnson

Leading J&J since 2012, Gorsky has been an employee of the firm since 1988--with the exception of a stint working for Novartis from 2004-08, where he lead the company's pharmaceutical business. Before that, he had worked his way up at J&J from the position of sales associate for J&J subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc. to upper management. As the leader of J&J, he helped oversee the $20 billion acquisition of Synthes.
 

Miles D. White, Abbott Laboratories

White began working at Abbott in 1984 and was named CEO in 1998. Forbes cited him in their list of America's Most Powerful People list and he has been included in Barron's roundup of the world's 30 Best CEO's by Barron's for seven years running. Pharmaceutical news organization Scrip cited White as its Executive of the Year in 2009.

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