A breakthrough idea isn’t enough in medtech; it takes the right technical partner to navigate software, regulation, and the path to market.
In this episode, Chris Kennedy, Vice President of Partnerships at Prolucid Technologies, explains how the company helps medtech innovators transform complex ideas into market-ready products through specialized software engineering. He outlines Prolucid’s work across device software, software-as-a-medical-device, cloud applications, and FDA-regulated development. Chris highlights how they support founders in navigating challenges like design controls, cybersecurity, quality systems, and regulatory readiness. He also shares insights from MedTech Innovator, emphasizing the value of coachability and the growing role of AI as a force multiplier to help small teams scale efficiently.
Tune in to learn how medtech companies can build smarter, move faster, and use the right partnerships and tools to scale innovation more effectively.
Resources:Connect with and follow Chris Kennedy on LinkedIn.Follow Prolucid Technologies on LinkedIn and explore their website here.
[00:00:03] Hello everyone, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. I'm excited to be reporting an episode here at the Medtech Innovator Series. Today I have the privilege of hosting Chris Kennedy on the podcast. He is the VP of Partnerships at Prolucid. Chris, welcome to the podcast. Appreciate you having me on. So, you're from Canada, like I'm sure you're happy to be in the sun.
[00:00:26] It's a little different up there right now. We're having the forever winter, so escaping snow and rain to be in Southern California is always a treat. Not a bad place to be. Hey, to kick things off, Chris, tell me a little bit about Prolucid and the work that you guys do. Yeah, for sure. So, at a very high level, we are a service provider to the Medtech industry, and the service that we provide is software engineering. So, a lot of these companies will be AI, SAMD, or even device software combo.
[00:00:53] So, we will come on board, develop the software for them, no matter what the target is. It might be on device, it might be a cloud application, but help them through that product development, through FDA approvals kind of stage. That's great. I mean, it's super necessary. And what's one of the things that you feel makes your company unique in the space? Yeah, so we don't have a lot of direct competitors in the space. What we compete against mainly is people hiring and building their own teams internally.
[00:01:21] However, creating a company in the Medtech space is an immensely complicated task. You have to deal with regulatory, you have to deal with reimbursement, you have to deal with product development, you have to do your own QMS. There's 10,000 things on the plate of these Medtech founders, and hiring and maintaining a software-specific team is another pretty large lift. Because that's all we do, we're really, really good at it. And all of the things that come around that in the Medtech space, so the quality system, the design control, the cybersecurity, are all things that we can handle because it's all we do.
[00:01:51] Where if you're doing it for the first time, those are all pretty challenging things. Yeah, no, I love it. It's sort of a partner to help you get over those new experiences, the challenges of building a device. Definitely. Yeah. And you guys are doing both the actual devices as well as software as a medical device. Yeah. So traditionally, we would do a lot of device software technologies or products. So it'd be a lot of like imaging, diagnostics, point-of-care therapeutics.
[00:02:20] What we've seen in the last three or four years is a lot of growth in the SAMD space. So things that are just analyzing existing data sources, whether that be waveform like ECG or imaging, to do some sort of diagnostic or surgical planning. So a lot of pure software plays now, but we are still working a lot on device as well. Very cool. So what are you seeing on the partnership side? Some interesting opportunities. So one of the reasons we're here is MedTech Innovator is a value partner of ours.
[00:02:50] A few years ago, I would go to events like the MedTech Conference or MedTech Strategist, and I would notice that all of the best MedTech startups would just disappear for a day of the conference. And I couldn't figure out why. And then I did find out that there's this secret Illuminati running the best MedTech companies in the industry called MedTech Innovator and decided we needed to get more involved with that over the last couple of years. So there's a lot of that, but it's a lot of customer facing as well.
[00:03:18] That's cool. So you're here as a judge. Tell me how that whole experience is going and any insights that you run into that would be interesting to our viewers and listeners. Yeah. So a lot of wildly different companies in there, and there are a bunch that I will definitely not be an expert in, like the bone tapes and the hydrogels and stuff. But from a software perspective, a lot of great innovation, very highly coachable CEOs, too, which is nice because there's a lot of value that they can get out of the program.
[00:03:47] There's people here that have specialized in very niche areas and have been doing it for 20, 30 years. So the value that they can get just out of being here and talking to them, let alone making it into the program, is a lot. And I've seen a lot of companies be very receptive to that. That's great, man. Yeah, it's an interesting ecosystem. I like that you called it the Illuminati. I think it's a good description of it, but definitely a lot of great companies come out of it. A lot of good fundings happen as a result of it.
[00:04:15] What would you say is happening differently in an industry, aside from the SAMD trends that you're seeing, that leaders out there should be mindful about in the medtech space? Yeah. So something we've been talking to a lot of companies about is using AI, not necessarily in the product itself, but to make your business overall more efficient. It's something you can't really ignore anymore. And it's something that even we've had to do internally over the last couple of years.
[00:04:42] So kind of using it as a force multiplier so that you can automate everything that is possible to automate so you can focus on whatever your company does best. And a lot of what they do best is innovating and developing really innovative products, not necessarily accounting or documentation. So anything that you can do to automate around that means that your team of six or eight entrepreneurs can operate like a 20 or 30 person company without growing that headcount.
[00:05:09] That's awesome. What a great piece of advice and for all of us to take in. AI is not going anywhere. Let's leverage it to optimize those areas of our companies that need the most help so that you can use you and your team's brainpower to make the biggest difference. So, Chris, give us a closing thought here and where can people find out more about you and the team at Prolucid Technologies? Yeah. So if you go to any MedTech event ever, I'm probably there. So you can always come find me.
[00:05:34] But other than that, you visit our website, Prolucid.ca or just find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty easy to find. Awesome. Chris, thanks for your time today. For everybody out there, check out the show notes for all the ways to get in touch with Chris and his team at Prolusin. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.