This CEO Is Helping Lung Cancer Patients Told to "Just Wait"

Finding a lung nodule early is supposed to be good news. But for millions of patients, it means something terrifying: "We see something. We don't know what it is. Come back in six months." Joanna Nathan is the CEO of Prana Surgical, a company she spun out of Johnson & Johnson after the technology she'd watched develop one office over was about to be shelved. An immigrant entrepreneur and bioengineer, Joanna left her role running J&J's external medtech incubator to bet on a device that cores out tiny lung nodules — keeping the lung inflated, fitting between the ribs — so patients can finally get answers instead of anxiety. In this conversation, Joanna walks through the road from a freezing cabin phone call to a first-in-human study in Australia, what it took to herd four teams of lawyers through a corporate spinout, why she treats the FDA as a partner rather than a gatekeeper, and what lung cancer screening coming online means for millions of patients stuck in watchful waiting. She also reflects on what community means for medtech founders in a turbulent moment for the industry. If you've ever wondered what it really takes to pull a technology out of a giant company and build something with it — this is your episode.Subscribe to First in Human: - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd Check out Prana Surgical's webpage: https://www.pranasurgical.com/Connect with Joanna on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannacnathan/