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The Medtech Innovation Podcast

The Medtech Innovation Podcast

By: Spencer Jones
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 Medtech Innovation Podcast: Spencer Jones dives deep into winning medtech startup strategies. Each episode unpacks hot takes and insider tactics from the trenches of medtech innovation. Join physician inventors, founders, engineers, and healthcare market makers as they share actionable insights to navigate the FDA, secure medtech funding, and drive medtech breakthroughs. No-nonsense advice to be a change maker in medtech.©️ 2024 XO Medtech Career Success Economics Leadership Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Why Orthopedic Giants are Resisting Patient Specific Implants

    Why Orthopedic Giants are Resisting Patient Specific Implants
    Oct 14 2025
    I'm joined by Jonathan Swill, Principal Consultant at Surgical Excellence Partners, as we explore the future of patient-specific implants in orthopedics, why 20% of knee replacement patients remain unsatisfied, and how personalized medicine combined with robotics and AI will transform musculoskeletal surgery.In this episode, we dive deep into:The Patient-Specific Implant Revolution in Orthopedics → Why orthopedics is the "last bastion" to adopt patient-specific approaches while cranial maxillofacial surgery has made it the gold standard → How automated surgical planning software is reducing design time from weeks to days by cutting engineer-surgeon iteration cycles → The critical integration gap: precise robotic placement means nothing without the perfect implant design to matchFrom Research to Commercialization: The HSS Experience → How exposure to both implant failures and custom department successes at Hospital for Special Surgery sparked the patient-specific vision → Point of care labs enable hospitals to commercialize solutions internally and democratize patient-specific technologies → Physical proximity to clinical problems allows research hospitals to move from issue identification to solution faster than anyoneThe 20% Problem: Why Off-the-Shelf Implants Fall Short → One in five total knee replacement patients worldwide report dissatisfaction with outcomes—that's over 500,000 people annually → Mechanical alignment taught surgeons to align everyone to 7 degrees regardless of patient size, anatomy, or natural joint position → Kinematic alignment restores patient's natural body position but still uses off-the-shelf parts with non-native geometriesAdoption Barriers: Why Perfect Technology Doesn't Guarantee Market Success → Large orthopedic companies have hundreds of billions in off-the-shelf inventory that would become obsolete with widespread patient-specific adoption → Entrenched sales forces with long-standing contracts and massive influence create structural resistance to innovation → Surgeon education is harder than regulatory approval—you must prove improved outcomes, OR time savings, and cost reduction simultaneouslyKinematic vs Mechanical Alignment: The Paradigm Shift → Mechanical alignment was the legacy standard because off-the-shelf implants were the only option available → Kinematic alignment restores patient's natural anatomy and ligament positions but still lacks truly patient-specific geometries → Even leaders like Restore3D still focus on mechanical alignment with patient-specific implants—massive opportunity remains for kinematic integrationAI-Powered Surgical Planning: From Support Tool to Decision Partner → Current AI automates repetitive tasks like landmark identification and implant templating but remains basic and task-based → Next five years will see AI become predictive—forecasting post-op outcomes from intraoperative imaging at 6, 12, 18, 24 month intervals → AI will enable true kinematic alignment at scale by analyzing patient-specific anatomy and predicting optimal restoration positionsLead Qualification Over Volume: The Startup Survival Strategy → 90% of surgeons use one specific product and will die using it regardless of 3x cost savings from alternatives → Cutting 10 poor-fit prospects to focus on 10 qualified leads yields more customers faster than broadly targeting 30-40 big names → First sale cracks the ice—learn what worked, replicate the pattern, and qualify future leads against that success profileAdvice for Medtech Innovators: Become a Multi-Tool Athlete → Choose startups over big companies early in career—wear multiple hats, learn faster, become more valuable to future employers → Don't silo yourself into one specialty—COVID hiring freezes taught the value of broader medtech product development skills → Being really good at 4-5 different disciplines makes you "glue guy" who translates across teams—more valuable than being best at one thingBest Quotes:"Why wouldn't you want to be Shohei Otani? Why wouldn't you want to be him?""If 20%, if only 80% of our patients worldwide are satisfied and in no more pain with their knee replacement, that's still 20% of people. At two to three million knee replacements a year, that is over 500,000 people that are unsatisfied.""We need to not accept what's good enough. We need to accept perfection. We need to expect perfection because we see surgeons as these amazing geniuses that they are. But I think the tools that we're giving them are not allowing them to be perfect.""Orthopedics is the last bastion to really take it on in terms of patient-specific work because cranial maxillofacial—that's what they do. That is the gold standard and that's how it's taken.""You can make the best product in the world, but if they don't understand the value of your product and how it improves patient outcomes or how it improves surgeries, then it's not going...
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    1 hr and 15 mins
  • 3 AI cheat codes to launch and scale your medical device

    3 AI cheat codes to launch and scale your medical device
    Oct 7 2025
    I'm joined by Jelani Abdus-Salaam, Founder at Best of AI, as we explore how AI can transform medtech operations, the critical distinction between AI automation and AI agents, and practical strategies for adopting AI without massive organizational overhauls.In this episode, we dive deep into:AI Literacy Gap Creates Massive Medtech Opportunity → Medtech is perfectly suited for AI with rules-based QMS, defined regulatory standards, and structured clinical data—yet AI literacy remains surprisingly low → Companies that bought specialized AI solutions from domain experts succeeded 67% of the time, while internal enterprise initiatives failed at 95% → The paradox: medtech professionals excel at clinical work but lack exposure to AI, creating adoption barriers despite clear benefitsAI Agents vs AI Automation: The Game-Changing Distinction → Automations follow sequential steps while AI agents use reasoning and context to decide their own path to accomplish goals → AI agents can pull from multiple knowledge sources and adapt their approach based on the situation → Critical factor: AI is "really dumb" until you codify your processes—you must understand your business systems before deploying agentsThe Chief of AI Role Is Now Essential → Every medtech company will soon need a dedicated AI officer who touches sales, marketing, and operations as the central nexus → Don't need full developers—someone who can use cursor, Claude, and orchestration tools to build and test solutions internally → Junior AI people trained by experienced practitioners can be incredibly effective when paired with enterprise-level leadershipSpecialized Small Models Outperform Everything Apps → Specialized small language models working as agentic teams outperform single large models for complex tasks → Building your own small LLM specialized in one niche delivers better performance than ingesting documentation into ChatGPT → Open source models will prevail long-term for medtech—create custom models for specific processesThe Human-in-the-Loop Mandate for Healthcare → Humans must remain in the loop for quality assurance, especially in healthcare where hallucinations can be catastrophic → AGI isn't coming for 10-20 years—companies that fired hundreds expecting AI replacement had to rehire when systems failed → Build approval checkpoints where humans review and either approve or send AI agents back for refinementStart With Custom GPTs, Not Enterprise Overhauls → Pick ChatGPT or Claude, list manual tasks you do repeatedly, and create custom GPTs that codify how you do those things → One founder automated SOP creation that took 20-30 minutes—now saves hours weekly compounding over dozens of tasks → Turn off data tracking settings if concerned about HIPAA complianceBest Quotes:"AI is really dumb. It's up to you, the person, the operator, the orchestrator, to understand what you want to happen for AI to follow what you want to happen.""You will have individual departments. You will have the ability for AI agents to take information, pass that information into other teams or departments. That's already happening now.""Even if you don't use AI in your business, you do need to know its capabilities because it can be used against you. Voice duplication is so easy. Deepfakes are getting so good. You need awareness.""There's more and more people who understand the value of having a specialized AI person. Some people are calling this AI Chief Officer. All they do is learn AI, deploy AI, learn AI, deploy AI."Want more insights on medtech innovation?Subscribe to the channel so you don't miss hot takes and insider tactics from the trenches of medtech startups.🤝 Join the #1 network for medtech innovators on the internet. Become a member to accelerate your journey, collaborate and build valuable ventures. Join for free using this link.Find the perfect vendors for your medtech project for free at MedtechVendors - https://www.medtechvendors.com/📈 My FREE 5-day course for Medtech Innovators to create successful ventures: https://xomedtech.com/free-courseFIND SPENCER JONES ON SOCIAL Spencer's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/medtech-innovation/ XO Medtech LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/xo-medtech/FIND JELANI ABDUS-SALAAM ON SOCIAL Jelani on X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/JelaniFuel Jelani on Instagram - @JelaniFuel Scale With Agents - https://www.scalewithagents.com/ Episode Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction to Jelani and his journey to medtech AI 5:00 - The medtech AI adoption paradox 10:00 - AI agents vs automation distinction 20:00 - Why medtech needs Chief of AI officers 27:00 - Specialized models vs everything apps 35:00 - Prompt engineering strategies 47:00 - Agent-to-agent healthcare ethics 57:00 - Simulation departments becoming mandatory 1:07:00 - Starting with custom GPTs 1:11:00 - Building data-first company culture
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • His secret to bypassing the broken venture capital model

    His secret to bypassing the broken venture capital model
    Sep 25 2025
    I'm joined by Jeff June, MedTech Founder and Ecosystem Builder, as we explore the broken venture capital model in healthcare, why accelerator programs are failing early-stage companies, and his battle-tested strategies for building successful MedTech ventures through strategic partnerships and ecosystem development.In this episode, we dive deep into:The Funding Crisis Reality Check→ Why venture capital has transformed into private equity, abandoning true early-stage companies→ How founders are achieving FDA clearance and $500K revenue without raising venture capital→ The massive disconnect between what VCs fund versus what MedTech innovation actually needsThe Accelerator Industrial Complex Problem→ Why sponsor-driven programs select companies through the lens of corporate partners, not innovation merit→ How success metrics focused on "total funding raised" create perverse incentives that harm true innovators→ The power of micro-accelerators and peer learning over brand-name program marketingTechnical Founders Are More Capable Than They Think→ Why being told to "find an experienced CEO" is the worst advice technical founders receive→ How clinical founders should lead with their expertise story, not generic market-size slides→ The critical difference between selling yourself first versus selling your technologyThe Clinical-to-Consumer Healthcare Revolution→ How patient education and responsibility can solve healthcare's innovation adoption crisis→ Why great clinical innovations fail when they don't fit reimbursement models→ The untapped opportunity for consumer health technologies with clinical validationIschemia Care: A $15M Success Story→ How Jeff's stroke diagnostics company accomplished what others needed $120M to achieve→ Building ecosystems of clinicians, hospitals, payers, and strategics for maximum leverage→ The first blood test for stroke and lessons from commercializing breakthrough diagnosticsStrategic Partnership Acquisition Playbook→ Why M&A timelines have stretched to 12+ years and average deal sizes tripled→ How to build relationships with division presidents who have P&L responsibility, not BD departments→ The "we can do what you'll never be able to do" positioning that unlocks strategic partnershipsReimbursement Reality: The Two-Year Patient Turnover Truth→ Why payers optimize for getting patients off their rolls within two years→ How to speak the specific language of individual payers versus generic "healthcare system" messaging→ The critical distinction between clinical evidence for FDA versus clinical evidence for adoptionEcosystem Building Over Individual Excellence→ Creating comprehensive support networks that enable ventures to achieve more with less capital→ Why fractional experts who truly integrate with your team outperform expensive full-time hires→ Building relationships that become competitive moats in highly specialized healthcare marketsBest Quotes:"You are not an AI enabled solution. Stop it. Stop putting that as the first words describing your company.""There is no such thing as a healthcare system. Every hospital is individualized, they work with different payers. You are not saving 'the healthcare system' money.""The best people you will work with want to knock you out right away. They want to know what you know and you've got to lead them.""You're far more capable than you think you are. Trust your instincts more. You know more than you think you do."Want more insights on medtech innovation?Subscribe to the channel so you don't miss hot takes and insider tactics from the trenches of medtech startups.🤝 Join the #1 network for medtech innovators on the internet. Join for free using this link.Find vendors at MedtechVendors - https://www.medtechvendors.com/📈 FREE 5-day course: https://xomedtech.com/free-courseFIND SPENCER JONES ON SOCIALSpencer's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/medtech-innovation/ XO Medtech LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/xo-medtech/ FIND JEFF JUNE ON SOCIALJeff's LinkedIn Profile- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffjune/Ischemia Care - https://www.ischemiacare.com/ Episode Timestamps:0:00 - Introduction to Jeff June's three-decade MedTech journey5:00 - Why the venture capital model is broken for early-stage MedTech15:00 - Technical founders are more capable than they're told22:00 - The accelerator industrial complex diagnosis35:00 - Clinical-to-consumer healthcare transformation45:00 - What MedTech innovators consistently overlook55:00 - Building ecosystem partnerships over individual excellence65:00 - Reimbursement reality and payer psychology75:00 - Strategic M&A relationship building playbook
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    1 hr and 30 mins
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