NGBiLab S3.E13: Magellan Biomedical

Magellan Biomedical is a medical device company based in Toronto working on a problem that has been hiding in plain sight for almost a century. The fundamental tools used in cardiac catheterization have not meaningfully changed since 1929, and in some of the most critical procedures, conventional tools fail up to twenty percent of the time.In this episode, Jim Wilson speaks with co-founder and CEO Ali Tavallaei about a device called the CAT Pilot, which gives surgeons precise local control over the tip of a catheter during minimally invasive cardiovascular procedures. Where conventional tools achieve roughly a twelve percent success rate crossing arterial occlusions, the CAT Pilot achieves ninety-two percent. Ali walks through how the technology works, how the company spun out of Sunnybrook Research Institute, and why he believes an acquisition is a likely outcome once FDA approval is secured.This is a conversation about a long overdue disruption to a standard medical procedure, and a small Canadian team that decided to do something about it.