During Inari Medical Inc.’s inaugural earnings call on Aug. 11, Chief Executive Bill Hoffman shared an example of why the company does what it does.
The patient described below, he said, is not unique.
“A couple of weeks ago, one of our sales professionals from Arizona was called just before midnight to cover a procedure on a very sick pulmonary embolism patient.
“When she arrived she found a very somber cath lab. A 74-year-old man who had presented to the emergency department a couple of hours previously was desperately short of breath. A CT angiogram showed very large blood clots straddling the left and right main pulmonary arteries and extending deep into both vessels.
“The patient’s blood pressure was very low and unstable, and blood tests showed elevated cardiac enzymes, all of which suggested the blood clots were severely impacting the heart’s ability to deliver blood through the lungs and through the body. This is called a massive or high-risk PE and it carries a very high mortality rate.
“The physician told the patient that removing the blood clot quickly was his only chance to live. But there was a strong chance that he might not survive the procedure.
“The patient’s wife was actually called to the cath lab to say goodbye to her husband. This man and his wife came to terms with his mortality in real time as the procedure started.
“Minutes later, our FlowTriever system was introduced through the groin into his pulmonary arteries. After two whooshes with our T-20 device, along with the use of our FlowTriever disks designed to disrupt firm and wall-adhered clot, two large blood clots were removed.
“The patient’s heart rate and blood saturation levels returned to normal before he left the cath lab.
“The physician told our sales professional, ‘I’ll remember this for a long time. Thank you.’
“Our devices and our people, all of them in partnership with our physicians, have a most spectacular impact on human life. We are committed to a cause and to our mission in ways that are bigger than ourselves and way bigger than business. We are thankful for this opportunity and for the responsibility entrusted with us.”
—Jessie Yount
