Developing a Medical Device Playbook for Success

Nearly 250 professionals from start-ups and entrepreneurial organizations are set to gather at Newport Beach in California for the Medical Device Commercialization Playbook Event presented by StarFish Medical.

The event is designed to inform and inspire medtech a biotech entrepreneurs. The event brings stories and insights from some of the industry’s most remarkable entrepreneurs and seasoned experts.

Scott Philips, StarFish Medical’s founder and CEO, sat down to discuss the event which begins today.

Let’s talk about the Medtech Playbook for a second. It’s not like other conferences or shows in the space. It has a different vibe – a different feeling.

Phillips: “Largely, the conferences in our industry tend to be kind of sponsor-centric. And so, all of the panels and breakouts … are essentially crafted around what the sponsor would want. And so, we wanted to create a conference that was attendee-centric.”

“And then we bring in the other piece of it. We bring in speakers that our attendees haven't seen before because, you know, in any given town, there's kind of the local luminaries that always speak at every conference and people have kind of heard their stories. So, we wanted to keep it fresh and bring in people [ our attendees] haven't heard before.”

Is Medtech Playbook held roughly in the same place each time, or does the location alter or switch?

Phillips: “We started in Vancouver and then we moved to Toronto, and we've been running it every year in Toronto since about 2016. Newport has become up in the last couple of years. This is the second year for Newport and we're planning to do Boston this year as well.”

“We intend to build sort of an institutional kind of feel to it, that every year people want to go out to the playbook event and to meet people; maybe find some contacts to [raise funding]; maybe get some inspiration to carry on with their ventures; or get ideas how to do them better.”

One of the things I wanted to ask about was the regulatory discussions. Are you talking about EU MDR as that is kind of a hot topic of discussion?

Phillips: “Yeah, that is absolutely a hot topic. So, Tonya Porter, who runs a Regulatory Agency in Southern California, is coming to the conference, and she's well-regarded.
She’s Done a lot of work in off the ophthalmology particularly, which is a hot industry in Southern Cal and she just has a ton of experience in [EU MDR].”

What kinds of information can the audience expect from the speakers?

Phillips: “We bring people in to really tell their stories and as we’re curating we always get them to go into the dark nights of the soul part of the story. Because it’s easy to tell stories about how you made one genius decision after another and then you had a big win. It’s invulnerable and has a moment of unreality and it’s almost demoralizing for an audience – people who are struggling with problems to hear from someone who has never had any problems. So, we want [our speakers] to share that they have a lot in common with people in the audience.”

Check out the Medical Device Playbook’s agenda and a list of speakers for the event.