Fogarty at Top of Medical Device Innovation Pantheon

Have your own opinion about the greatest innovator? Participate in the informal survey below.

Alfred Mann, a physicist by training, has been the one of the most successful serial entrepreneurs in the Los Angeles area, establishing insulin pump pioneer MiniMed (acquired by Medtronic) and neurostimulation device company Advanced Bionics (acquired by Boston Scientific). He is presently CEO of Valencia, CA-based inhaler innovator MannKind and is involved with a host of other pioneering companies. Mann won the MDEA Lifetime Achievement award in 2011. Votes: 6

Earl Bakken, the co-founder of Medtronic, developed the first battery-operated external pacemaker in the late 1957. An electrical engineer by training, he developed the device after at the behest of open-heart surgery innovator C. Walton Lillehei, MD, whose infant patients temporarily relied on pacemakers that were plugged into outlets. Every time there was a power outage, they were in danger. Bakken's Minneapolis-area company was soon going portable with its pacemakers, and making them permanent devices for patients. Bakken not only built Medtronic, but also wrote the Medtronic Mission, which dedicates the company toward developing devices that alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life." Votes: 10

Josef Bille is an innovator in the field of laser-eye correction. A professor at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Bille won the European Inventor Award 2012 in the category Lifetime achievement from the European Patent Office. Technology he has helped develop has been used to correct the vision of millions of patients across the globe. He has co-founded five start-ups. Votes: 2

Mir Imran is perhaps best known for his pioneering contributions to the creation of the first automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator. An electrical engineer by training, he presently holds more than 200 issued patents and has founded 20 life science companies, 15 of which have gone IPO or been acquired. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the Silicon Valley-based research lab and business incubator InCube Labs. Votes: 1

Raymond Damadian, MD, was not technically an engineer, but he led a three-person team that invented the first full-body MRI in the late 1970s. He went on to gain a reputation as a scrappy business owner willing to take large companies such as General Electric to court over patent infringement. He remains the president and chairman of the company he founded, Melville, NY-based Fonar Corp., which went went on to build the world's first upright MRI machine. Votes: 1

Willem Kolff, MD, was a bioengineer who pioneered hemodialysis and artificial organs. Under his supervision, the first "permanent" artificial heart was implanted in a patient in 1982. The Dutch native was still a distinguished professor emeritus of bioengineering, surgery and medicine at the University of Utah before his death in 2009 at age 97. Votes: 2

Thomas Fogarty, MD, is a vascular surgeon who developed the embolectomy catheter in the 1960s. In 1965, the first balloon angioplasty was performed using his catheter. Although not an engineer by training, Fogarty is a lifelong tinkerer and is the inventor of numerous medical devices and holds more than 150 patents. In 2000, he was awarded the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for his medical device inventions, which include a minimally invasive breast cancer diagnosis device and a self-expanding stent-graft to treat aortic aneurysms less invasively. Fogarty won the MDEA Lifetime Achievement award in 2012. Votes: 14
 

Robert Langer is the most cited engineer in history. The David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, Langer is a pioneer in the application of chemical engineering to medicine. He has has 1020 patents (509 issued) globally. The patents have been licensed or sublicensed by more than 250 medical technology companies, including many medical device firms. Votes: 3

The Golden Mousetrap Awards are dedicated to rewarding the achievements of innovators in the U.S. manufacturing and design industries. The awards will be presented at Anaheim Convention Center in February, in conjunction with the colocated events: MD&M West, Pacific Design & Manufacturing, WestPack, PLASTEC West, Electronics West, ATX West, and Aerocon.