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Friday, July 17, 2009
Thought Leaders
Zoll Medical CEO Packer explores defibrillator portability, power
MHT's Galen Moore: Hiring trends and opportunities
MHT's Marc Songini: Technology to keep seniors healthy
Rodney Brown on NECN: Hacking into medical devices
He takes pride in how his company has not only grown but has been positioned as a leader in the medical devices sector. Richard A. Packer has been CEO of Zoll Medical for almost a decade. He shared his thoughts on his company, his industry and the economy with freelance writer Marc Songini.
Q: Can you give us an update on your company?
A: Most people think of Zoll as a defibrillator company. It’s not quite like that. We’re developing a portfolio to cover the chain of survival from cardiac arrest and beyond. It’s certainly our core competency to bring people back from sudden cardiac arrest, but now we’re applying tools in the effort to do more than that.
Q: Talk about some of the more interesting products.
A: One is the world’s only wearable defibrillator. No bystander intervention is required, and it has a 98 percent shock success rate. This product doesn’t wait around for someone to die, and then have someone run to them with the device to bring them back to life. We treat patients at a high risk of cardiac arrest and fit them with their own personal defibrillator (the LifeVest Wearable Defibrillator). If they go into cardiac arrest, they’re shocked immediately. It’s like having a paramedic at your side 24/7. Another product is an automated CPR device (the AutoPulse Non-invasive Cardiac Support Pump). It’s fully automated — one button — and it runs on batteries.
Q: What’s interesting, at a high level, in your market?
A: There is continuing integration of electronics to let us make something like a defibrillator small enough for someone to wear. We’ve barely explored the portability of medical devices, but with portability, they can become very, very personal. Batteries are another exciting area. The batteries are smaller, lighter and more capable, and they enable us to do something like automated CPR. We look at battery technology advances as another big element in the world of devices.
Also, I think that data is becoming a crucial portion of every medical business. You hear a lot about this from the Obama administration: They want health care to be efficient, and they are trying to reduce redundancy. I see this as a huge trend that’s very exciting, in which information is being collected that then can be studied and analyzed to improve the actual delivery of health care. Almost every technology has some element in which we consider how we get information in it — and then how do we get it out to people’s iPhones and make it very accessible.
Q: What’s your take on pending regulation and current politicians?
A: There are two big things affecting our business and all business. One is that there is a lot of talk about the change to our health care system; who pays for what and how much money there is to support the health care Americans want. The second big, interesting thing is that our business is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and it’s becoming much more conservative. The FDA is looking more at risk and less at reward and becoming more cautious before it will approve new therapies. It always weighed risk and reward, but now the pendulum is swinging over to risk reduction and that means we get less rewards.
Q: How do you see the economy right now and its effect on the industry?
A: Capital budgets for hospitals have tightened up. But more generally, in terms of health care, people still get sick. There are the same number of cardiac arrests, the same number of heart attacks, and these people have to get treated. People use older equipment, not the best, rather than investing in new equipment. They are putting off improvements for a bit. One of the biggest challenges is to keep the Zoll team pumped up and excited. It’s a challenge to all leaders to keep employees fully engaged and just worry about saving the next patient — and not the amount of cars sold in June.
Q: Perhaps you can talk a bit about technology and the role of first responders?
A: In the area of cardiac arrest, we can’t wait until we get a patient to the hospital to give them the highest level of care. We need to do that out on the street. First responders are very sophisticated these days, and that’s a continuing trend across the globe. The issue is, maybe you are alone or have one teammate with you, and you have a cardiac arrest in front of you. You have to do five things at once.
Q: Some people are saying that Washington is the new Wall Street. Is this so, and how does it affect funding innovation?
A: My opinion is that Washington is not the new Wall Street. I don’t think we are going to turn to Washington as a main funding mechanism.
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