Sometimes, you can’t tell the medtech players without a scorecard.
Consider this at least a page or two in the gameday program, a primer on some of the heavy hitters—and a few rookies—in Orange County’s medical technology league.
Several of various sizes get a few moments in the spotlight during the Emerging Medtech Summit this week at Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel in Dana Point. The event’s website shows some 125 companies involved including ClearFlow in Anaheim, CathWorks in Aliso Viejo and Diality in Irvine (see story, page 25).
Investors and others are also expected, descending on OC because of its rep as one of a few loci for medical tech, in multiple areas of healthcare, as well as dental.
OC simply seems to be one key place where medical technology firms can incubate, find funding, and grow; which means rising talent startups—potential future big-contract big players—also live here (see item below).
“A successful innovation ecosystem depends on both larger companies and startups,” says Bill Carpou, chief executive of med and tech accelerator Octane in Irvine. “Startups fuel innovation while larger companies help build critical mass.”
Flora, Forums
Octane has grown several companies, as well as promoted conversations about them, akin to what’s coming to the Ritz-Carlton.
At The Cove at UCI Beall Applied Innovation, Octane holds a monthly “Coffee at the Cove” and the Kansas City, Mo.-based 1 Million Cups organization holds a weekly event.
Octane’s larger gatherings have included one for medical technology innovation and another for eyecare technology.
Carpou is only one of many pushing the envelope on how to back OC medtech efforts of all sizes. Last year, he and Emile Haddad, chief executive of Irvine-based master planner FivePoint, publicly unveiled a plan to bring an innovation center to the developer’s Great Park Neighborhoods.
FivePoint and Duarte-based City of Hope had already begun work on a $1 billion cancer treatment campus—which includes research and lab space to drive more medical innovation, in addition to the obvious element and benefit for OC’s growing strength as a hub for cancer treatment (see story, page 1).
Other backers include the Beall Family, whose name also adorns UCI’s innovation igniter base. The UCI Beall Applied Innovation Center last week celebrated its fifth anniversary with a grand opening to showcase its new location, a three-story, 100,000 square foot building.
Slow, Furious
Big splash announcements—like a free-agent signing or blockbuster trade—can suggest brushfire-like ignition and consumption by what’s happening here in medtech.
Closer to the truth is a combination of slow-and-steady with fast-and-furious, a little like the “larger companies and startups” interaction Carpou craves.
It takes time to build a team.
San Clemente-based Glaukos Corp., for instance—$3.2 billion market cap eyecare device maker buying companies and licensing new technology, as if to the manner born—was once a startup, founded in 1998.
Some who birthed Glaukos are now working on root canal device maker Sonendo Inc., the fastest-growing privately held mid-sized OC company two years running; it has about $40 million in revenue and recently raised $85 million in new funding to fuel growth, the Business Journal reported three weeks ago.
That’s not to mention companies like Masimo Corp.—30 years ago a gleam in Joe Kiani’s eye and now sporting a nearly $10 billion market cap, up sixfold in five years.
Coming Cadre
ClearFlow, CathWorks and Diality, three of nine OC firms at Emerging Medtech this week, are a nice chronological cross-section of what’s coming.
• ClearFlow is the oldster of the group at about 15 years; its device facilitates clearing drainage after chest surgeries. The problems addressed can cut costs from post-op complications and reduce hospital stays.
• CathWorks’ product helps show blockages with fluoroscopic images of the coronary artery branch, the network of blood vessels bringing the heart nutrients and oxygen in the blood. The company is about seven years old.
Chief Executives of the two, Paul Molloy and Jim Corbett, respectively, are part of a panel at the summit which looks to discuss moving from healthcare exec to entrepreneur—new companies, new technologies—according to show materials.
It’s “very cool—but of course, I’m biased,” Corbett said.
Meantime, Diality is less than 2 years old, “pre-revenue” and seeking funding. The in-home dialysis machine maker closed a $10 million round in November. About 12% of dialysis patients or 500,000 people are treated at home.
The company was drawn to OC after looking elsewhere.
“We considered San Diego and San Francisco,” said Chief Executive Osman Khawar, but Orange County’s “depth of local talent, including associated consultants and supporting companies, was impressive.”
(Editor’s note: Business Journal health reporter A. Leigh Corbett is the daughter of CathWorks CEO Jim Corbett.)
