BIOE 70Q: Medical Device Innovation
General Education Requirements
This seminar is expected to be in high demand. If you rank it as your first choice for priority enrollment, please be sure to apply for a second and third choice seminar for the quarter. You are also encouraged to write an additional statement for your lower ranked selection(s) so those faculty learn about your interest.
Course Description
This seminar explores the process by which new medical technologies are designed, evaluated, and adopted for clinical use, and addresses key questions relevant to aspiring healthcare innovators. How are medical needs identified, and solutions devised? How do clinical trial design, FDA regulation, insurance reimbursement, and healthcare reform impact commercial success? What do healthcare venture capitalists look for in an investment? How is digital health revolutionizing healthcare? Guest lecturers include prominent inventors, physicians, entrepreneurs, and investors. Hands-on design projects will challenge students to invent and prototype their own device-based answers to existing clinical needs. No previous engineering training is required.
Meet the Instructor: Ryan Pierce & Joseph Mandato
Ryan Pierce
Ryan Pierce is a Lecturer in Bioengineering, the Co-Founder and CEO of Nine, and a Venture Partner at SV Health Investors' Medtech Convergence Fund. In earlier roles, Ryan served as VP of Design and Innovation at Ventus Medical, VP of Business Development at Loma Vista Medical, a healthcare investor at De Novo Ventures and Rock Health, and a product designer at Concentric Medical and The Foundry/Zephyr Medical. An inventor on over 30 issued U.S. patents, Ryan has designed FDA-cleared devices to treat sleep apnea and stroke. Ryan earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Joseph Mandato
Joseph Mandato is a Lecturer in Bioengineering, and a General Partner and Managing Director of De Novo Ventures, a local venture capital firm investing in the life sciences. Before working at De Novo, he was an entrepreneur and served in a variety of executive positions in the medical device industry. He has also cofounded or been involved in the development of several well-known companies, including Align Technologies and Guidant Corporation.
