The Crux of Medtech

In this episode, your host, Jordan Burgin, is joined by Jim Hartman, Chief Commercial Officer at Cleerly, to talk about why heart disease is still caught too late and how AI-driven coronary CT analysis is moving diagnosis upstream, before the heart attack ever happens. Jim shares the personal story behind his switch from cardiac surgery to prevention, breaks down what Cleerly actually sees inside...

In this episode of the Crux of Neuro podcast, Liz Moyles sits down with Jim Surek, a 33-year medtech veteran with seven M&A exits to his name, including Advanced Bionics' $3 billion acquisition by Boston Scientific. Jim shares the commercial playbook he's used to build and scale teams across spine, neuromodulation, and urology, from selling medical supplies out of a catalogue to leadin...

In this episode, host Jordan Beurgin sits down with Dr. Dave Albert, physician, serial inventor and founder of AliveCor, the man who put a clinical-grade ECG in your pocket. From a viral 2011 iPhone demo to a pocket-sized 12-lead ECG that can diagnose a heart attack anywhere, Dave shares four decades of skating to where the puck was going. Key Topics Dave’s path from clinical medicine to serial me...

In this episode, host Henry Norton sits down with Anat Shani, CEO of Synchrony Medical, to talk about LibAirty™, the first FDA-cleared at-home airway clearance system and what it took to carry it from a COVID-era prototype to a US commercial launch. Key Topics The cystic fibrosis patient whose LibAirty device sustained her through a six-month, overseas transplant wait What airway clearance is, and...

In this episode of the Crux of Cardio, your host Jordan Burgin sits down with Louis de Lillers, CEO of CorWave, the French company developing a next-generation LVAD powered by the wave membrane technology inspired by the motion of marine animals. Louis shares why current LVADs leave patients alive but without a pulse, and how CorWave's approach could restore physiological blood flow, reduce de...

In this episode of The Crux of MedTech, Henry Norton sits down with Thom Rasche, Managing Partner and founding force behind Earlybird Health, the venture fund that literally changed German law to get public health insurers investing in early-stage medtech. Thom shares the unvarnished reality of European health VC: where the arbitrage lies, why the CE mark has lost its edge, and what separates the...

In this episode of The Crux of Cardio, Jordan Burgin sits down with Ken Nelson, one of the most experienced commercial leaders in cardiac digital health. Ken helped scale commercial teams at iRhythm, BioTelemetry/CardioNet, and Bardy Diagnostics, three of the defining names in ambulatory cardiac monitoring. He shares the inside story behind the 2020–2021 cardiac monitoring M&A wave, including...

In this episode of The Crux of MedTech, Henry Norton sits down with Toon Overbeeke, CEO and Co-founder of Vitestro, the company behind the world's first CE-marked autonomous robotic phlebotomy device, Aletta. Fresh off a $70M oversubscribed Series B backed by Labcorp, Mayo Clinic, Sutter Health and Sonder Capital, with Intuitive Surgical founder Fred Moll on the board, Toon shares how a friend...

In this episode, your host Jordan Burgin sits down with Dr. Lucy O'Keeffe, CEO and Co-Founder of CroíValve, for the first ever in-person recording of the Crux of Cardio. Lucy explains why the tricuspid valve was once considered the "forgotten valve", how her Dublin-based team is building a device that sits between repair and replacement, and what it really takes to raise €60 million...

In this episode, Henry Norton sits down with Karun Naga, CEO of Apreo Health, to talk about one of the most underserved patient populations in respiratory medicine and why everything the industry tried before was heading in the wrong direction. Karun takes us inside the 25-year journey from the original Emphasys Medical valve device through to Apreo's BREATHE Airway Scaffold, a fundamentally d...

In this episode of Crux of Cardio, Jordan Burgin sits down with Arnaud Mascarell, CEO and Co-Founder of FineHeart, the Bordeaux-based company behind the FlowMaker, a fully implantable cardiac assist device that works in synchrony with the heart's natural contraction rather than replacing it. Arnaud shares the full journey: 18 years at Medtronic pioneering CRT pacemakers, the origin story that...

Liam Burns, CEO of Qaelon Medical, joins Henry Norton to talk about one of surgery's most dangerous and overlooked complications: the anastomotic leak. With leak rates in colorectal surgery now estimated at 18-20% and the standard detection method dating back to 1910, Liam explains how Qaelon is digitizing leak detection to give surgeons real-time, objective data in the OR. He also shares the...

In this episode of the Crux of Cardio, Jordan Burgin sits down with Tarik Pacuka, former Chief Commercial Officer of Terumo Aortic, who scaled the business from a niche textile graft company into a $400M+ global cardiovascular player. Tarik shares the commercial playbook behind his 15-year rise from territory manager to CCO, the mentorship that shaped his leadership, what product recalls really do...

In this episode, Henry Norton is joined by Neal Piper, Founder and CEO of Luminoah, the company behind the world’s smallest wearable enteral feeding pump. Neal shares the deeply personal story of how his son Noah’s cancer diagnosis exposed just how outdated tube feeding technology really is, and what he’s doing to change it. Key TopicsThe founding story behind Luminoah and Neal’s son Noah’s cancer...

Henry Norton sits down with Todd Dunn, CEO of Accuryn Medical, for a conversation that starts on an OR floor and ends with a question about what it really means to lead with integrity. Todd didn’t come to medtech through a lab or a VC fund, he came through a hospital in Charlotte, where a CRNA pointed under a bed and showed him that the kidney, medicine’s most sensitive organ, was still being moni...

In this episode of The Crux of MedTech, Henry Norton is joined by Dr. Arun Menawat, Chairman and CEO of Profound Medical, the company behind the TULSA-PRO® system, an MRI-guided, incision-free platform that’s directly challenging robotic prostatectomy with head-to-head clinical data. Arun shares the clinical trial results that show step-change improvements in patient outcomes, the commercial lesso...

In this episode of the Crux of Cardio, host Jordan Burgin is joined by Martin Herman, co-founder and CEO of Powerful Medical the AI-powered cardiac diagnostics company behind PM Cardio. Martin shares how a software engineering background, a medical student brother, and a search for a truly pioneering problem led him to build an AI platform that can now diagnose 46 cardiovascular conditions from a...

Alzheimer's treatments finally exist but patients are waiting months for the brain scans they need to access them. In this episode, Jannis Fischer, CEO and co-founder of Positrigo, explains how his team built an ultra-compact brain PET scanner that fits inside a neurologist's office and cuts diagnostic timelines from months to days. From losing an investor the day before signing to FDA cle...

In this episode, host Henry Norton sits down with Bruno Dheedene, CEO and Founder of Rods&Cones, a surgical streaming platform that's solving one of the most overlooked problems in the OR - nobody can actually see what the surgeon is doing. Bruno shares how he bootstrapped the company from a 2018 incubation project to a profitable business serving customers worldwide, all without VC fundin...

Jordan is joined by Andreu Climent, CEO of Corify Care, a cardiac mapping company using non-invasive, whole-heart technology to guide EP procedures in real time. Andreu brings a telecoms engineering background to a problem most cardiologists have accepted as unsolvable: that half of all AF ablations fail, because clinicians are operating without seeing the full picture. They cover how Corify's...

In this episode, your host Henry Norton is joined by Esther Reynal de St Michel Richardot, Founding Partner at THENA Capital, to discuss why so many medtech founders are building technologies without understanding their real market challenges and how early-stage thinking about value propositions and stakeholder needs can make or break a healthcare startup. Esther shares her journey from market res...

In this episode, host Henry Norton sits down with Iwan van Vijfeijken, CEO of Microsure and a four-time medtech entrepreneur who's been through the full cycle of startup life. Iwan made the jump from NXP Semiconductors to medtech 15 years ago, starting as employee number one at Dermasun Medical. Since then, he's navigated three more ventures including Pulsify Medical, a cardiac monitoring...

Wayne Paterson, CEO and Vice Chairman of Anteris Technologies, joins host Jordan Bergen for a frank conversation about pivoting a failing drug company into the structural heart space and building what may be medtech's next billion-dollar product. Wayne shares how 36 drug launches, a pharma-first lens on total disease management, and a blank sheet of paper led to the world's first biomimeti...

In this episode, host Henry Norton sits down with Gautam Kainth, Partner at TCP Health Ventures, to unpack why medtech investing fundamentally differs from traditional tech and what founders need to know about positioning their companies for strategic exits. Gautam brings over 20 years of investment experience with $1+ billion in deployed capital across 30+ transactions spanning the US, Europe, As...

In this episode, host Jordan Burgin sits down with Carine Schorochoff, CEO of Cardiawave, to explore Valvosoft the world's first CE-marked non-invasive ultrasound therapy for severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. With 30-plus years in structural heart across J&J, Medtronic, Edwards Lifesciences, and two startup CEO roles, Carine breaks down why the technology has delivered 0% stroke rates ac...