At the 2015 Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit, Kevin Lobo, Chairman & CEO of Stryker Corporation, discussed why he believes neurotechnology is the hottest area of medical device innovation currently. He said Stryker sales for 2014 were $9.7 billion.
The focus is very much on minimally invasive treatments, endovascular approaches, neurostimulation, customized implants, robotics and synergistic equipment.
One area that Lobo highlighted was Stryker’s investment in mobile stroke units – with new technology, blood clots can be essentially pulled out on-site instead of being broken down with the help of medication.
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“Mobile stroke units will revolutionize care,” Lobo said. “It’s a whole new era we are going to see.” Of mobile technology, he said, “It’s game-changing. Having an x-ray read by an expert remotely is the future. It expands the continuum of care. Currently, everything just takes too long. We would never except that in other industries.”
Lobo also said that neurotechnology is a prime space in the industry that Stryker is looking to increase acquisitions, especially considering innovations like 3d printing and robotics can be leveraged between different areas of healthcare.
He joked that he believes even hospital food will get better in the near future, although they aren’t going to be the ones to invest in that area of healthcare.
Here’s Lobo back in May talking about Stryker’s growth and the place robotics plays in the company’s future:
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