Adam Torres and Donald Palme, Ph.D discuss the Cardiovascular Tech Forum
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
Listen to the Cardiovascular Tech Forum coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres and Donald Palme, Ph.D., Sr. Director at ICON, explore ICON and the Cardiovascular Tech Forum.
Watch Full Interview:
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today I am in Newport beach and I am at the cardiovascular tech forum and I have Dr.
Donald Palmi on the show. Dr. Palmi, welcome to the show. Hello, thank you for inviting me. Alright, I know you’re a senior director over at ICON, so a lot of things happening. I’m saying that right? Yes, senior director at ICON. A lot of things going on today at the Tech Forum. What brings you here today? Well, so a couple of things.
First, I’m here to represent ICON. We’re a large One of the big CRO companies, and CRO is basically we do clinical studies to advance medical devices through the R& D process, through the clinical trials process to show that they’re safe and effective, and then eventually in through the regulatory pathway in order to get them to the market so that they can actually be used to treat people and help people.
Basically treat disease and help. I mean, that’s why I got into this field was to to help people. So yeah, I’ve worked for many of the medical device companies directly or indirectly. And now I’m on the clinical side where I help with the strategy, dealing with the regulatory hurdles. Even to the point of, I’ve been involved with this for over 30 years.
So a lot of experience in that area. And it’s just, it’s fun to help new startup companies. It’s very exciting field. What do you enjoy about working with startups? Like with your background, I mean, there’s a lot of different things. Jim, by the way, this is a business show. A lot of entrepreneurs watch this lot of, so we keep it real.
So, so I worked for the big guys, scientific guidance, which, you know, was, was eventually. Bought and purchased by Boston Scientific. I’ve supported almost all the big medical device companies, Abbott, Medtronic. J and J, you name it. What I like about startup companies is you get a chance to do everything.
We joke when I joined my first startup company, I was the third employee in the startup company. And we did, we did everything from clinical studies and interviewing and treating patients to cleaning the bathrooms on a Friday night. So you get a chance to do everything you work in manufacturing strategies, Approaches, business, and you only get that at a startup company.
You don’t, when big, big companies tend to be very siloed. Startup companies are not, there’s no silo. So everybody does everything. It’s a team and it’s, it’s, and you only succeed if you’re a functional team. So that’s what’s cool about it. I love that. I think about mission matters and how we started my background’s finance.
I only worked in big companies in the past, and when I started this company myself, the other co-founder, I was back then, I’m editing, I’m doing interviews like startups do what they have to do to survive and to thrive. So I love that . Yep. And, and it’s fun. I’ve worked for three or four different startups.
Mm-Hmm. . And now with Icon. Half of our clients are startups or small med device companies. You know, they maybe have one or two devices under the market and they’re trying to now penetrate further and deeper and, and grow the company. So we can offer a lot of help in that regard, you know, whether it’s. Not from a device design standpoint, but I’ve even gotten down to where I’ve helped companies select materials, manufacturing processes, you know, what’s worked in the past, what’s not worked in the past, that’s actually probably more key and then how to push things forward.
What are some of the things that you look for, ICON looks for in the either companies or technologies, whether it’s founders or otherwise, that they’re going to work with or work for? I think the biggest thing that you look for, and this was a lesson I learned a long, long time ago from one of my bosses.
Yeah. He said, when you look at a company, don’t look at the product, don’t look at the field, don’t look at other competitions or anything else. He goes, look at the management. Wow. Do you believe them? Hmm. And if they’re believable, if they’re knowledgeable, if they’ve got their feet on the ground and they know what they’re doing, then they’ve got a really good chance to succeed.
If they have no clue, and you don’t believe them, and they can’t make you believe them, then he goes, Oh, yeah. Run and run fast. And I mean, I was at Boston during their acquisition period. I was part of their acquisition team. So weekly we were reviewing companies for potential acquisitions and you’d sit down and they do their dog and pony show.
There’s no other way to put it. That’s it. And you’re going, I don’t believe you. Yeah. We were looking at, you know, cardiovascular disease and they’re saying, We can cure heart disease, and it’s like, no, you can treat heart disease. You can, you know, reduce symptoms of heart disease. You can extend life, but you can’t cure it.
You can’t take a diseased artery and all of a sudden make it normal. Maybe someday that might be possible, but we’re not there. And, you know, when they start telling you, I can do this, it’s like, I don’t believe you. And that’s when you know, they’re going to fail. So it’s all about believe and trust. And, and it also goes all the way back to, you know, what are you going to invest in?
So when you’re working for a startup and, and a lot of your salaries and stock options and things like that, it’s like, if I’m going to leave this company and go to a different company, should I exercise those stock options? Look at management. Do you believe them? If you don’t. Don’t yeah and it was a great piece of advice.
It’s worked out every time for me if I If they know what they’re doing If they’re they’re presenting it Honestly and correctly and representing themselves well, then they’ve got a great chance to succeed if they’re blowing hot air up your skirt, so to speak, then run and run fast. So, you know, 30 years plus of experience.
You’ve worked with the big boys. You’ve worked with startups. What excites you in the market right now? Could be technology, could be companies, whatever. What excites you? What gets you fired up? Innovation and flexibility. It’s kind of weird, but. When you’ve worked for the big guys, and, and I won’t mention names here because it’s not fair, but.
Sure, sure. There are some medical device companies that are very innovative. They’re always the leader. They’re always first in the field. And then there’s the fast followers. And it’s not as fun being part of a fast follower because the path has already been paved for you to go down. You’re just following fast behind them.
You might be able to do it better, faster, cheaper. You’re still a follower. And what I like is the, the innovation, the original thought. I understand I’m weird in this, but I like to see the science. I mean, I’m a scientist at heart and I, people that know me tease me about this, but I had a former boss that used to love calling me Dr.
Dr. Professor. Dr. Dr. Professor. So I’ve actually got two PhDs in different fields and my kids would, Would tease me about the Big Bang Theory, you know, yeah. Oh, yeah the one, you know, he had two Peter’s I had two PhDs That’s like yeah me too. Okay, fine. What does that mean? Well, it just means I spent a lot of time in academia and I enjoyed it Yes, but the reason why is it was really cutting edge research And it was science and it was it was a chance to take And look at the data and analyze the data and understand the data.
And that’s, that’s really what excites me about, about this. And people go, well, yeah, what’s the science of medical devices. And it’s like, well, I had a professor once that when she found out I’d gone to the dark side, I’d left academia and I was trained to be a professor when I went to work in an industry, she goes, why would you do that?
And it’s like, look, in the five years I’ve worked in the medical device industry. Devices that I have worked on from concept through market approval have been used to treat over a million patients in five years. Wow. Wow. Over a million lives that were affected based off of your What other field can you do this in?
scale, like, when you think about that. It’s an amazing scale. And, and she just looked at me and I said, look, I, I did some clinical studies in academia. We treated 10, 20, 30 patients. Industry got interested in it, bought the technology, never saw it again. Because it then goes into their realm and they cut you out of that pathway.
And it’s like, no, but on the medical device side, you stay into it and you’re involved with it the whole way. So it’s very exciting. And I want to get into the science. I want to get into the data. And, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m at ICON is that’s one of my roles is to help companies look at their data, understand it, and then, you You know, how do we tweak it?
How do we, you know, do we change the patient population? Do we change the indications and work on the strategy part of it? That’s what’s exciting for me. So yeah, it’s, it’s a lot of fun and it’s innovative. It’s exciting. So, last thing I want you to do is if somebody wants to follow up and learn more about ICON, how do they do that?
So they can reach out to ICON. Like I said, we’re one of the big CROs. Just type in I C O N on the internet. Yep, yep. Thought so. All the searches will come up. I would tell you to go to my LinkedIn page, but it’s only about two years out of date. So, That’s not a great way to do it, but just do an internet search, look up ICON and it’ll give you links and then you can reach out and, and where I’m in the, what they call the MDDR group.
So it’s medical device and diagnostics and reach out and contact us. We’ve got inside sales. There’s lots of ways to do it. Just use a computer and the internet and reach out and find us. they got it, don’t worry. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll put the links to the website of course, and the show notes and all that good stuff, so don’t worry about that.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit the subscribe button. That subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration that can help you along the way in your journey as well.
Dr. Palmi, again, thank you so much for coming out. Appreciate you. Thank you.