Focusing on unmet needs, healthcare entrepreneurs provide their in-the-trenches perspectives on advancing medical technologies. Working to extend and enhance lives. Especially in global markets that demand high-impact growth products, innovators are challenged by securing funding through traditional ventures or alternative sources and developing cost-effective products in a changing landscape. From the 2011 Global Health Series organized by the Stanford Global Health Center in partnership with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Paul Yock, Professor of Medicine and Founding Co-Chair of Stanford's Program in Biodesign, leads this interactive panel discussion. Panelists include Uday Kumar of iRhythm, Darin Buxbaum of Hourglass Technologies, Mohit Kaushal of the West Wireless Health Institute, and Darren Hite of Aberdare Ventures, all of whom launched in their first years after Stanford.
Paul Yock is the Martha Meier Weiland Professor of Medicine and Mechanical Engineering (by courtesy) and Founding Co-Chair of Stanford’s new Department of Bioengineering. He also holds a courtesy appointment on Operations, Information and Technology in the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Yock is internationally known for his work in inventing, developing and testing new devices, including the Rapid Exchange ™ balloon angioplasty system, which is now the primary system in use worldwide. He also invented a Doppler-guided access system known as the Smart Needle™ and PD-Access™. The main focus of Yock’s research program has been in the field of intravascular ultrasound. He authored the fundamental patents for mechanical intravascular ultrasound imaging and helped conduct the initial clinical trials. In 1986, he founded Cardiovascular Imaging Systems, which was acquired by Boston Scientific in 1994. Yock has cofounded several other medical technology companies.
Uday N. Kumar, a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist by training, is the Founder and Chief Medical Officer of iRhythm Technologies, Inc., He has also served as an Adjunct Clinical Instructor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Lecturer in Bioengineering at Stanford University, where he previously was a Biodesign Cardiovascular Innovation Fellow (’05-’06). As a Fellow there, he focused on identifying and developing solutions to unmet needs in the field of cardiac electrophysiology (EP); one of these ideas formed the basis for iRhythm Technologies, Inc., which he founded in late 2006.
Prior to that, Kumar completed fellowships in cardiac EP and cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2005 and 2003, respectively. He previously completed his training in internal medicine in 2001 at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital of Columbia University. He helped launch Biomedical Modeling Inc., a company that created models from imaging data using rapid prototyping techniques for use in numerous medical areas. He started work on this project when he was a student at Harvard Medical School, from which he received his M.D. in 1998. He received his B.A. magna cum laude in Biochemistry from Harvard College in 1994.
Darin Buxbaum is the CEO and Co-Founder of HourGlass Technologies, Inc., a medical device company creating minimally invasive treatments for obesity. He started his medical device career in marketing and project management roles in Medtronic's Cardiac Rhythm Management Division where he received the Star of Excellence Award, the company's highest honor. He also served as a marketing and financial consultant to life science companies in the Bay Area. Buxbaum enjoys mentoring medical device entrepreneurs who stand behind their ideas to improve patients' lives. He earned his Bachelor's degrees in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Economics from Duke University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Mohit Kaushal is Executive Vice President of Business Development and Chief Strategy Officer of the West Wireless Health Institute. Kaushal has had an extensive career within clinical medicine, academic research, venture capital, public health and health policy. Previously, he was Director of Connected Health at the Federal Communications Commission, where his team produced the Health Care chapter of the National Broadband Plan and initiated collaboration with the Food and Drug Administration for the regulatory streamlining of converged telecommunication and medical devices. Prior to this position, he was an investment professional at Polaris Venture Partners, and held roles with Merrill Lynch’s Health Care IBD Group and the World Health Organization.
Kaushal currently serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at George Washington University, with a focus on connected health clinical research, and he is a member of the Johns Hopkins University Biomedical Engineering Industrial Liaison Advisory Board. He holds an M.B.A. from Stanford and an M.D. with distinction from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London.
Darren Hite is a Principal with Aberdare Ventures. Prior to Aberdare, he worked in the Neurological Business Development group at Medtronic. At Aberdare, Hite focuses on therapeutic drug and device companies as well as companies at the intersection of healthcare with next generation IT, mobile, and Internet technology.
Hite received his AB from Princeton University and his MBA from Stanford University. At Stanford, he was a member of the Biodesign Program. He has also studied in the MD program at Georgetown University.
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