Finding Opportunities When Curveballs Come Your Way

Key Learnings From Ajay's Experience

• A medtech CEO's first priority is to deeply understand the clinical problem their technology solves. Dive into the physician's perspective, patient needs, and how your product improves overall care. Immerse yourself where your technology will most commonly be used and get insights from those on the front lines early on. 

• Don’t accept capital from whoever offers it simply because you’re desperate for money. Find investors you can build a company with and make an intentional effort to nurture relationships with them. When you do so, they might eventually contribute to your venture in many different ways, like serving as board members or key advisors.

• Capitalize on every opportunity that arises, especially the unexpected ones. Stay agile as an organization to make the most of these moments. Cultivate a network of trusted advisors and harness your technical skills to sift through their advice, identifying and focusing on the core themes that emerge.

Ajay Shah is a mechanical engineer from MIT with a PhD in engineering from Harvard Medical School. As the son of a critical care physician, he spent his life in and around the world of medicine and is now married to a physician as well. 

As someone who stands at the intersection of healthcare and technology, Ajay understands how the latter can significantly improve the lives of patients and providers. Before founding Cytovale, Ajay co-founded two life sciences companies, one of which enjoyed a successful exit. 

Today, Ajay is tackling one of healthcare's most pressing challenges: sepsis – a severe dysregulated immune response to infection that, if untreated, can quickly lead to multiple organ failures. It’s the leading cause of death for inpatients, claiming over 350,000 lives annually – more than opioid overdoses, prostate cancer, and breast cancer combined. Early detection is crucial for preventing sepsis deaths. Each hour of delay in sepsis treatment can raise the risk of death by as much as 8%. On top of that, sepsis is also the most expensive condition for U.S. hospitals to manage.

While clinicians have objective tools to quickly identify emergencies like heart attacks and strokes, they lack a clear, objective tool for identifying high-risk sepsis patients as they enter emergency departments – which 90% of them do. 

Cytovale's flagship product, IntelliSep, is a diagnostic test that identifies sepsis in adult patients showing signs of infection within as little as 10 minutes. In very basic terms, the test works by squeezing white blood cells to characterize their responses to infection. 

IntelliSep received FDA approval in January 2023 and has been gaining traction since. The company already has paying commercial customers on board and more in the process of integration. 

"Compelling clinical outcomes are really shaping patients' care journeys and improving their outcomes, as well as providing meaningful financial benefits to the health system," says Ajay. 

Today, healthcare centers like Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin Health Network have already adopted the test and are reporting positive outcomes in terms of both patient care and financial metrics. Ajay is excited to announce partnerships with more centers in the near future.