Strategic Intent: Beyond The Breakthrough - From Approval To Adoption

A medical device can work beautifully and still go nowhere. In this episode of Strategic Intent, Krishna Eluri sits down with Mark Saxton, U.S. CEO of Baird Medical, who has spent more than 25 years bringing first-of-their-kind procedural technologies to market. Their conversation digs into medtech's hardest problem — not inventing a technology, but getting physicians to switch and payers to cover it. Using Baird's effort to introduce microwave ablation for thyroid nodules, a minimally invasive alternative to surgery, into the U.S., Mark unpacks how to build a payer strategy early, earn the backing of medical societies, train physicians for genuine adoption, and sidestep the market traps that have sunk countless promising devices. His parting advice for founders who are winning abroad but stuck at the U.S. starting line: do your homework on the market before you spend on the science.