Symposium #1 Innovative Medical Device Industry

August  25, 2021 10:00 am – 1:30 pm EDT
Co-chairs: Metin Akay, Ph.D. and Natalie Wisniewski, Ph.D.

 

Anja Brau, Ph.D.

Anja Brau, Ph.D.

GE Healthcare

Anja Brau, PhD, is a global healthcare imaging technology leader with 20 years of experience in research and development in the field of MRI. Her passion is delivering innovative clinical solutions to the marketplace to improve patient care around the world. As General Manager of MR Clinical Solutions & Research Collaborations at GE Healthcare, she leads a global team of scientists and engineers developing the next generation of MR applications in collaboration with academic and clinical partners. She is an internationally respected MR technology expert with over 10 patents and dozens of scientific publications and book chapters. She received her undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University and her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.

Peter C. Simpson, M.S.

Peter C. Simpson, M.S.

Dexcom

Peter Simpson is the Senior Vice President of Advanced Research & Technology at Dexcom.  He is a leading expert in Medical Device development and Glucose Sensing Technologies with over 600 awarded and pending U.S. patents and numerous articles on continuous glucose monitoring and analytical instrumentation.

At Dexcom, Peter leads the scientific research and development of next generation products and technologies.  Mr. Simpson has been with Dexcom for 20 years and has led or contributed to the development of every generation of Dexcom’s Continuous Glucose Monitors.  Prior to Dexcom, he was a founding scientist and Associate Director of Technology Development at DNA Sciences.

Mr. Simpson received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University and pursued a PhD in Analytical Chemistry at UC Berkeley.

Alicia Chong Rodriguez, M.S.

Alicia Chong Rodriguez, M.S.

Bloomer Tech

Alicia is founder and CEO of Bloomer HealthTech a company with the mission to end, worldwide, women’s alarmingly high mortality rates due to heart disease. Her team integrates sensors seamlessly into ordinary, everyday clothing such as the brassiere, to collect information to build a robust clinical data set to understand female cardiac health across ethnicities. This allows for personalized universal healthcare, optimizing women’s heart treatment through monitoring and prevention of negative outcomes while also enhancing communication with doctors and caregivers. Alicia has six years of experience in the semiconductor industry as a hardware engineer and nine years of experience generating initiatives for women in technology in Mexico and Costa Rica.  She was recipient of the MIT Graduate Women of Excellence award, a scholarship by Google for the Global Solutions Program (GSP) of Singularity University and part of Batch 15 of Startup Chile. Alicia graduated from Tecnológico de Monterrey where she did a Bachelor in Electronic & Computer Engineering with specialization in Digital Systems, and is currently a graduate fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she combines engineering, design and business doing a dual-masters program in Integrated Design and Management (IDM) and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).

Adam Sharkawy, Ph.D.

Adam Sharkawy, Ph.D.

Material Impact

Adam is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Material Impact. An accomplished executive healthcare and life sciences leader, Adam brings his track record of building and leading material-based centers of innovation within several large corporates and extensive experience on both sides of acquisition transactions to the Material Impact team. His worldwide leadership spans US, International, and Emerging markets.

Adam’s successful career as a seasoned executive leader and entrepreneur in the Healthcare and Life Sciences sector encompasses a diverse background across technologies (devices, bioactives, and biologics), therapy spaces (interventional, cardiovascular, surgery, orthopedics, etc) and different business environments (leading small entrepreneurial VC-funded to large Fortune 500 corporate).

Prior to co-founding Material Impact, Adam was Sr. Vice President of The Medicines Company and Head of their Surgery and Perioperative Care Global Business Unit where he led the the $170M acquisition of Tenaxis Medical and the integration of three other acquired companies in deals totaling in excess of $1B. Before that, he helped establish Smith & Nephew’s Emerging Market divisions in Dubai where he served as a member of their executive leadership team. There he developed the product portfolio across all of Smith & Nephew’s businesses (orthopedics, sports medicine and advanced wound care). Prior to that he started the Advanced Healing Technologies / Biomaterials franchise within the Smith & Nephew Endoscopy division in the Boston area and led their R&D organization.

Stephanie Fertig, Ph.D.

Stephanie Fertig, Ph.D.

NIH

Ms. Stephanie J. Fertig is the new HHS Small Business Program Lead in SEED (Small business Education and Entrepreneurial Development) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She currently oversees the Health and Human Services (HHS) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, which includes the NIH SBIR and STTR programs. The HHS SBIR and STTR programs are congressionally mandated set-aside programs that provide over $1.2 billion dollars per year to small business concerns. Prior to joining SEED, she managed the SBIR and STTR Programs at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). During her over 15 years at NIH she has led the development and implementation of multiple programs focused on small businesses and translational research.  Ms. Fertig has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with a major in Physics from the University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Mike Hess, M.S.

Mike Hess, M.S.

Medtronic

Mike Hess, VP of Corporate Technology and Innovation, has been with Medtronic for 30 years. Leading the Corporate Science and Technology organization, Mike is focused on identifying and prioritizing early stage technology programs to advance therapy innovation. He is a Medtronic Technical Fellow, a member of the Bakken Society and an American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) fellow. Mike has 36 issued patents and numerous publications to his credit.

At Medtronic, Mike has worked in a wide range of leadership roles at Medtronic including R&D management, corporate research and technology, program management, upstream marketing, clinical, and General Management for Brady and Heart Failure therapies.

Outside of Medtronic Mike is active on numerous academic advisory boards for the advancement of Biomedical Engineering and has been involved in Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and other associations that promote engineering and education.

Oxana Pantchenko, Ph.D.

Oxana Pantchenko, Ph.D.

NextFlex

Oxana Pantchenko earned her PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Currently, she is a Program Manager for Medical Devices, San Jose, CA. Her experience includes work at U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Center for Devices and Radiological Health, University of California at Santa Cruz, San Jose State University, Foothill Community College and various medical device start-ups.