Growth on the Cutting Edge

Originally Published MX November/December 2005

COVER STORY

Interview by Steve Halasey

To become established in the medical device industry, it helps if a start-up company has a unique, exclusive technology at its core. But to thrive, the company must not only be able to capitalize on that technology, but also defend it.

Michael A. Baker, president and CEO of ArthroCare Corp. (Austin, TX), knows a little something about how to do both. Since taking the helm in 1997—the same year ArthroCare patented its fundamental technology, Coblation—Baker has seen to it that the company's investors receive every penny to which they're entitled. After all, it was their initial investments that funded the development of a process once considered impossible. And while ArthroCare has been leveraging that technology's applications in targeted medical fields, Coblation's potential has just begun to be tapped.