ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Twenty-five years ago, a group of medical device executives banded together to create a new approach to company creation, casting a wide net to find the best solutions to the greatest unmet needs. Part 2 of a 2-part story.
What’s the secret to successful company creation in medtech? Is there, in fact, a secret at all? A quarter of a century ago four seasoned medical device executives, with a diversity of skills, talents, and expertise, came together to create a kind of incubator that was focused less on shared services and expertise than on company creation itself. Indeed, at the time, venture capital firms and other investors were just beginning to appreciate the potential of opportunities in a medical device industry that differed in fundamental ways from the biotech plays that had dominated private investment in the two previous decades.
Over the course of the following 25 years, The Foundry has turned out an impressive list of companies, including Evalve, Concentric, Ardian, and others, several of which developed pioneering technology to address important clinical problems. In the following roundtable, part 2 of our 2-part feature, Allan Will, Hank Plain, Hanson Gifford, and Mark Deem relate the history of The Foundry and the thinking and strategies that led to its quarter-century of success.
