a larger surgical player would acquire it. But over time, it dropped into the range where it could be affordable to us to do it. So in the summer, we started the process. We would be a good steward for the technology and help a lot of obese patients.
X: How is the Austin ecosystem for medtech devices?
DM: I’m from Austin; I believe a lot in the innovation potential in the Austin community. It’s exploded on the tech side. We felt the talent and spirit would make it an excellent place for a medical device and life sciences hub down the road. There hasn’t been a medical school, which is a challenge, but we’ve had strong venture capital funds.
We’ve been able to grow our company and bring funding into the state, investors who have been very happy to have us in Austin. Then the question is, Can you attract the talent to build these companies? We’ve been fortunate that we’ve been able to attract talent. And from a medical device perspective, you don’t necessarily have to manufacture locally. It’s different than biotech, where you need wetlab spaces and access to armies of PhD researchers, which are critical to their growth. We need a lot of engineering and UT produces a pretty good talent pool of engineers. We need sales and marketing talent; Austin has those things.
X: How would you like to see the Austin ecosystem grow?
DM: The biggest barrier is funding. It’s not like in tech, where for a few million dollars you can be profitable with some code and a good idea. It takes tens of millions to even get approved by FDA, and then another set of tens of millions of dollars to get to the market. It’s not just a problem in Austin. The Bay Area complains about the access to capital. We’re trying to find more cost-effective ways to move the companies forward.
In Austin, a really big win was the announcement of the new medical school. We saw that as a big catalyst for the industry, if a little more on the biotech and life sciences side. But even for medical devices, it’s good to do clinical research locally in the community. Academic physicians are really important as we grow the community over the next 10 years.
X: You received money from the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas. What are your thoughts about the revamped agency? Do you feel it’s doing enough to promote commercialization as opposed to basic science research?
DM: It was a transformative investment for us. We probably wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for CPRIT’s investment. I believe in what they were trying to do as an organization. Their investment in commercialization would have the greatest patient impact. It’s a balance; you need to fund basic research. But if you are trying to impact patient care, you’ve got to invest in commercializing organizations that are going to get those products to market.
If you look at the life cycle of innovation, there’s no end to the number of new drug candidates that have been identified that are sitting in universities, that don’t have the funding to move into clinical research. If you really want to try to make a difference for patients and the economy, you’ve got to find a way to get those technologies to the market. The way we do that in today’s global economy is through companies. We turned our $5 million CPRIT grant into closing a $46 million venture financing that year. If technology just sits in labs, it’s not doing any patients any good.
