The Power of Women in Medtech: Leveraging Women Led Innovation | LSI Europe '23

Since 2007, Medi-Vantage, a strategy consulting firm, has been dedicated to helping medtech, diagnostic, drug delivery & digital health companies disrupt markets, drive share and grow revenues by strategically outperforming their competition.

I build collaborative teams to perform medtech strategy research for our clients, and lead them to superior results.
- Accomplished business leader with a lengthy track record of success.
- Exceptional team builder and coach, with a reputation for finding and developing top talent.
- Strong and authentic communicator, at ease connecting with engineers, business leaders, analysts, investors, or customers.
- Deep expertise drawn from a career-long obsession with medical device product development and commercialization, and customer-centered design thinking.
- Adaptable and coachable. Always striving to learn and improve.

Our research generates strategic plans developed by subject matter experts and highly experienced medical device industry veterans.

Projects since 2007 have resulted in increased client revenues of greater than $1B; include market assessments/adjacent market entry decisions, commercialization plans, pricing strategy, investor pitch decks, five and ten year strategic plans, creation of sales and clinician training materials, VoC, human factors usability testing and market research for developing product and marketing requirement documents.

I have dedicated my career to study of the intersection of materials science and medicine with the goal of creating products to improve patients’ lives. At Arsenal Medical, I have led the development of our in situ forming foam platform. This exciting technology platform has commercial application in treating severely injured patients with abdominal hemorrhage through our ResQFoam product. I have managed ResQFoam from concept through development, securing $25M from the DOD (through DARPA and ARO). I was also the PI and inventor of an Arsenal technology that has enabled the scale up of electrospinning fibers, supported by $2.3M from NIST.

At 480 Biomedical, I was on the team that developed a novel bioresorbable scaffold technology to treat peripheral arterial disease. Through this novel composite design, we were able to achieve properties similar to metal stents, with a stent that is fully absorbable. I drove initial materials selection and oversaw preliminary drug delivery formulations. I also spearheaded the submission of a Fast-Track SBIR, resulting in a $1.7M award and initiating the development of our stent for pediatric pulmonary artery stenosis. Additionally, I oversaw our application for funding from Broadview Ventures, resulting in an additional $1.2M for the pediatric stent program.

My key areas of expertise:

--Grant Writing: Directed ideation and led the submission of government proposals resulting in over $27M of funding from DARPA and NIH

--Product Development: Led development and execution of our ResQFoam product including regulatory strategy and submissions, design control process and contract manufacturing, project timeline and budget, and establishment of a world-class advisory board

--Technical Management: Managed R&D group of up to 10 engineers & technicians

--Intellectual Property: Inventor on more than 25 pending or issued patents

--Publications: Authored 18 peer-reviewed scientific publications and 30+ presentations

Ana is the CEO of Neuroelectrics, a company aiming to change the way we interact with the brain; developing innovative technologies to monitor and stimulate the brain. She was nominated by IESE as one of the most influential entrepreneurs under 40 in Spain in 2010, she was the only woman on that list. She received the EU Prize for Women Innovators from the European Commission EC in 2014. Also in 2014, she was an award recipient of the International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge. In 2015 & 2016, she was named one of most inspiring women on the Inspiring Fifty list in Europe of women technological leaders and innovators. As a company, Neuroelectrics received the Best Start-up in Health Award in 2015 by Wired UK magazine and in 2016 was recognized as one of the “Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America” by Entrepreneur Magazine’s Entrepreneur 360™ List, the most comprehensive analysis of private companies in America. Ana continues to break the barriers for women and entrepreneurs bringing together science and technology in an impactful way.

Laura Indolfi is the Co-Founder & CEO of PanTher Therapeutics, an early stage spin-out from MIT and MGH that provides superior technologies for revolutionizing the treatment of locally advanced solid tumors. Her scientific expertise covers a broad range of therapeutic areas (cardio, cancer, regenerative medicine) and approaches (drug delivery, cell therapy, implanted devices). Together with her strong technical background, Laura has hands-on business and managerial know-how developed during her biomedical business training at Sloan and Harvard Business schools, combining the science and business knowledge to drive the company’s vision.

Prior to PanTher, she was a research associate at the Harvard-MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the MGH Cancer Center. She strongly believes in the power of outreaching initiatives to promote research awareness and foster the public audiences discovery of the beauty of science. In 2014 the line of clothes Cytocouture, created in collaboration with Colombian designer Carlos Villamil and inspired by her cell-therapy research, won the global competition Descience.

In 2016, she was named a TED Fellow, one of 21 people chosen annually by the TED organization who are considered to be the most disruptive and transformative change-makers in the world. In 2017, she attended the prestigious conference “Fortune: Most Powerful Women – Next Gen”, an invite-only summit hosted by Fortune gathering a stellar group of game-changing executives, entrepreneurs and innovators in business. Laura is also one of the 5 women selected by Massachusetts Life Science Center and Takeda for their inaugural class in 2018 of MassNextGen program, honoring exceptional leaders in the biotech industry.