“I believe that Orange County is the center of the innovation universe here in America, particularly in the medical technology area,” Ray Cohen, the co-founder and former CEO of Irvine device maker Axonics, told attendees at the Business Journal’s 11th annual Innovator of the Year Awards, held Sept. 10 at the Irvine Marriott.
That claim is borne out by the five IOTY award winners announced at the event, who largely hail from the healthcare and medtech sectors; see their stories in this week’s print edition.
Cohen himself was an IOTY winner the prior year. Two months after winning the 2024 award, Axonics – a maker of devices to treat urinary and bowel dysfunction, founded in 2013 and which went public in 2018 – was sold to Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) for $3.7 billion.
Among Cohen’s tips for success: creativity, a keen work ethic, persistence, and a willingness to make sacrifices in order to succeed. “Are you willing to pay the price it takes?”
Another tip for success: build a good team.
“No one can do it by themselves,” Ray Cohen told attendees at the Innovator of the Year Awards, during his keynote address. “Every single (IOTY) winner got a team of individuals that they hand-selected.”
“The key is: When you find good people, keep them close,” he said.
Cohen’s advice appears to have been learned at InspireMD (Nasdaq: NSPR), a Miami-based maker of a carotid stent system for the prevention of stroke.
In late July, InspireMD, valued around $100 million, named Cohen to its board. Last week, another Axonics alum, co-founder and former president and CFO Dan Dearen, was added to InspireMD’s board.
Dearen also serves on the board of Irvine’s Beta Bionics (Nasdaq: BBNX), the maker of an artificial pancreas that went public at the start of the year and is currently valued around $1 billion, as well as Irvine’s JenaValve Technology, a maker of heart valves that’s in the process of being acquired by OC’s Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE: EW) for $1.2 billion.
Cohen and Dearen also both worked together as execs for Laguna Hills’ Vessix Vascular, a medtech firm that was bought by Boston Scientific for $425 million in 2012.
Axonics had a long-running legal battle regarding patent infringements with device-making giant Medtronic (NYSE: MDT); the litigation was confidentially settled early this year, a few months after the Irvine firm’s sale to Boston Scientific.
Medtronic’s Brett Wall, one of the five award winners at the Sept. 10 Innovator of the Year Awards event (his division wasn’t involved in the litigation), shared the stage with Axonics co-founder Ray Cohen, and also shared some similar thoughts on the OC’s role in the medtech world.
The area “can be, literally, the ecosystem for healthcare, and healthcare development (and) technology,” Wall said. “We have great institutions here, and great entrepreneurs here.”
