New Episode of Medtech POV Podcast: Nanowear CEO Venk Varadan Details Medtech Startup Journey, Regulatory Pathway, and Payment Hurdles Facing Industry

The newest episode of Medtech POV with Scott Whitaker, out on all podcast streaming platforms, highlights Venk Varadan’s journey as a medtech entrepreneur. Varadan, CEO and co-founder of Nanowear, talked with AdvaMed President and CEO Scott Whitaker about the applications of nanotechnology and AI in health care and the process his startup went through to go from research and development to FDA approval.

Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Varadan co-founded Nanowear in 2014 with his father Dr. Vijay Varadan and launched SimpleSense, an undergarment and AI-enabled software platform for remote monitoring and home-based cardiopulmonary digital diagnostics. The platform replaces routine in-person cardiology assessments for patients suffering from hypertension, structural heart disorders, and congestive heart failure, among other conditions. Prior to starting the company, he spent nearly seven years in investment banking, focusing on venture-backed software and communications technology. He also has experience in pharmaceutical sales and marketing. Varadan joined the AdvaMed Board of Directors in 2022 and serves on the AdvaMed Accel and Digital Health Tech Boards of Directors.

Explaining the origin of the technology by Nanowear, Varadan talked about his father’s research into defense application of nanotechnology, saying, “If you think about a submarine, at a certain depth 20 or 30 meters, the sonar is incapable of differentiating between a school of fish, a geyser, or a Russian sub, for example. But you can’t make the hull of the sonar area bigger to capture all those nuanced reverberations. If you start putting nanosensors on the hull, now you’ve got a much higher surface area on the same footprint that can start to understand those differences in sonar reverberations with accuracy, because you’ve got all those touch points.

“So, his idea was that the human body is also a hard-to-detect environment, right? So, what if I take this same concept and put sensors outside the body? They tried so many different iterations with different chemical formulations and different element combinations, and they came up with this cloth nanotechnology.”

Varadan also talked about building relationships as a cash-strapped small business with FDA, “I think before you interact with FDA, you think that this is some, clouded wizard castle, right? That only certain people know how to navigate or you have to have a lot of resources to do. And we were a startup, and we were talking to fellow companies that told us to hire this lawyer, hire this consultant.

“Well, we don’t have money to do that. And as anything, I think it’s relationship building, and I think once you understand you chose to go into healthcare, FDA is a partner here. They’re not an adversary, and we understood that very, very early and just started speaking engineer to engineer. That’s what they are. They’re just people with really, really strong backgrounds in clinical medicine and engineering.”

Prior to founding Nanowear, Varadan worked in technology investment banking for nearly seven years. He spoke with Whitaker about the venture capital and investment landscape in medtech, and talked about the critical role AdvaMed’s MedTech Conference plays for companies looking for investors.

“The MedTech Conference is the reason I started joining AdvaMed back in 2016. The first conference I came to was in Minneapolis in 2016, and I just thought the ecosystem of what we have from a people standpoint… there’s a community involved here of CEOs and leaders. And now we have to bring in the investor community as well.”

“Investors are hearing and trying to make a thesis around where is AI going? Where is digital going? Just as the industry operators are. And I think the MedTech conference in particular, if you look at just our last year and two years before, the matchmaking forums particularly for the startup companies. And we heard such good feedback from Anaheim last year and in Boston the year before; I can’t wait for Toronto.”

To listen to the full episode, download the Medtech POV podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever podcast streaming is available. Visit AdvaMed.org/podcast for more information on the podcast and listen to past episodes.

The Medtech POV podcast is hosted by Scott Whitaker, President and CEO of AdvaMed, the world’s largest trade association representing medical technology companies. In each episode, guests sit down with Whitaker to talk about the intersection of medtech and policy from every perspective, including current issues in business, policy, and current events.