LSI2021 Emerging Medtech Summit: A Trip Report

Last week, we attended the Life Science Market Research Emerging MedTech Summit in Laguna Beach, CA. Perhaps the biggest takeaway was the fact that, of the 800+ attendees, around 450 were in-person.

Though in-person meeting safety protocols were still in place and well followed, the sense of a post-pandemic boom was palpable.

The conference was a major re-connection opportunity for all concerned: investors, angels, entrepreneurs, strategics, bankers, consultants and the like. Elevator-pitch podium speeches and a much-improved conference app facilitated speed dating en masse, which allowed for a enhanced signal-over-noise learning and networking. Remote attendees were easily able to dial-in via the conference app.

Nearly drinking from a firehose, we held around 40 meetings in 2 ½ days.

Our conference takeaways are as follows:

• Unmet clinical needs remain huge: One of the core themes of our medical device investing practice is that there is an infinite demand for improvements in surgical tools and techniques. This is recognized by the supply side of emerging technology companies
• Proceduralization: In order for a medical device company to get the attention of investors, capital markets and acquirors, the company must differentiate. Often companies can differentiate with an implant or a retractable disposable device with new features. Sometimes, however, a bigger way to differentiate is by what we call “proceduralization”, which is to improve the procedure with better tools such as image guidance or robotics, etc. This has been a major M&A and value creating trend in the industry.
• Early Stage: Much of what we saw at the conference was early stage, which makes sense as this was an emerging technology summit. Nearly all of the meetings we held were with pre-FDA pre-revenue companies. Our preference is to wait until a company’s technology is established in its core market, but we sensed there was a lot of potential here to meet unmet clinical needs in the future.
• SPACs: Anyone who reads the Wall Street Journal knows that a “SPAC” (special purpose acquisition company) is a public blind pool of capital looking for an acquisition. There are several dedicated medical device SPACs and many of the companies we talked with have been approached by these SPACs. However, none of the companies we spoke with wanted to go the SPAC route. The general sentiment, though anecdotal, was that going public prematurely would be a distraction to management.