Designing Consumer-Facing Medical Technology
Interview with Indomo CEO Rick Bente
Guest
CEO of Indomo
Rick is the co-founder and CEO of Indomo, a therapeutics company developing at-home prescription dermatology treatments. He brings more than 20 years of experience as an engineer and operator across medtech, pharma, and diagnostics, including leadership roles at Medtronic, Insulet, Unilife, and YourBio Health (acq. Hims), with a focus on drug delivery and combination products. Rick is an inventor on more than 50 patents and has helped raise over $150 million.
Interview Summary
Rick Bente is the co-founder and CEO of Indomo, a clinical-stage therapeutics company developing at-home prescription treatments for inflammatory skin conditions. An engineer by training, Rick began his career at Medtronic, working on early insulin pump platforms focused on improving access, integrating sensors, and enabling patients to manage complex therapy outside the clinic. That work shaped a recurring theme for his career: using technology to expand access and give patients more control over their care.
Indomo was formed around a specific access gap in dermatology. In-office corticosteroid injections are well-established and highly effective for inflammatory acne, often reducing symptoms quickly. But access is poorly aligned with patient need. Treatment typically requires an in-person dermatology visit, and wait times can stretch weeks or months — a mismatch for a condition that often requires rapid intervention.
Rather than developing a completely new therapy, Indomo focused on re-engineering access to an existing treatment. Its flagship product, ClearPen, is an at-home corticosteroid injection for acne, designed to replicate the in-office procedure.
That premise has been tested clinically. Investigator-led studies demonstrated equivalence between patient-performed and in-office procedures, validating the core concept and unlocking the next phase of development. In 2025, Indomo emerged from stealth with $25 million in financing to support Phase 2 clinical trials. Interim data are expected later this year, with plans to advance toward pivotal trials ahead of regulatory submission.
Across the conversation, Rick returns to a consistent lesson from his career: innovation doesn’t always require inventing something new.
Key Questions
How do you translate an in-office procedure out of the clinic?
How do you build consumer-facing medical technology that works without user training or supervision?
What needs to be proven before a company is ready to develop a public narrative?
What proof points need to be reached before you’re ready to raise your next round?
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Top Takeaways
Why Usability Should Start Earlier Than You Think
Rick approaches usability as an engineering obligation, not an assumption about user behavior. From the start, Indomo treated ClearPen as a prescription therapeutic that would be used by patients without training or supervision. Making the device easy to use wasn’t enough; it had to be deliberately hard to misuse — a responsibility Rick places squarely on engineering.
To achieve that, the team combined early, informal patient-facing work, including friends-and-family–style studies, with direct physician input. They closely analyzed how dermatologists perform in-office injections, using those observations to inform how the procedure could be reproduced safely and consistently at home.
Those insights shaped core design decisions. Rather than relying on instructions or patient judgment, ClearPen is mechanically designed to control injection depth, volume, and rate, with a lockout mechanism that prevents activation unless the device is correctly positioned. Even failure modes were intentional. If the button is pressed too early, the device doesn’t activate, preserving the dose and allowing the patient to reposition and proceed as usual.
Throughout development, Rick consistently made engineering decisions to avoid offloading steps to patients — even though asking more of users might have simplified development. However, it would have likely introduced variability that could have undermined efficacy and clinical data. “Hope is not a great strategy when it comes to usability,” he says.
➜ Usability failures are engineering failures.
When products are intended for use without training or supervision, complexity must be solved upstream in design — not pushed onto patients through instructions. Early, informal human-factors work, combined with physician input, can help prevent misuse and protect both clinical outcomes and data quality.
Choosing the Right Moment for Visibility — and Using Stealth Mode Strategically
In Indomo’s early years, Rick deliberately separated technical progress from public storytelling. The company stayed largely out of view, not to avoid scrutiny, but to reduce risk. With early investor support in place, the team focused on building IP, generating early clinical data, and retiring core technical uncertainty — before telling a broader story.
Rick describes two principles that guided those early years. The first was to “fail fast” — tackling the hardest technical problems early to understand the scope of the work ahead. The second was working closely with advisors, investors, and other entrepreneurs to identify value inflection points and map what capital would be required to reach them.
That framing shaped development priorities. Rather than polishing a narrative, Indomo concentrated on testing its core thesis: could patients safely and effectively perform at-home intradermal injections with outcomes equivalent to in-office procedures? Early feasibility work and investigator-led studies were designed to answer that question directly.
For Indomo, the decision to exit stealth was driven by progress. Entering clinical trials and beginning direct engagement with patients and physicians marked a natural inflection point. By then, the company had data, IP, and a clearer regulatory path. Rick viewed that sequencing as essential — particularly for a consumer-facing product, where speaking too early risks credibility. Emerging without evidence, he notes, is “making statements with no receipts.”
➜ Visibility should follow what the business needs next.
Stealth isn’t an identity; it’s a tool. When capital is available, quieter periods are best used to de-risk the hardest technical problems, generate evidence, and identify the value inflection points worth funding. Visibility becomes necessary when progress requires engagement — such as entering clinical trials, building trust with patients or physicians, or advancing toward regulatory milestones — particularly for consumer-facing products.
Raise For What Reduces Risk Next
Rick approaches fundraising by starting with a single question: what proof is needed next? At Indomo, capital raises were built around specific milestones that meaningfully increased company value, rather than broad narratives about market potential. Each round was tied to the data needed to justify the next step — and nothing more.
The company’s recent $25 million raise followed a pivotal proof point: investigator-led data showing that patient-performed injections could match outcomes attained from office visits. That data shifted investor conversations from vision to execution. Rick was able to clearly articulate what the new capital would fund — advancing into Phase 2 trials, continuing device development, and progressing toward pivotal studies — and how each step reduced technical and clinical risk.
Pitch simplicity was intentional: Rick focused on distilling complex work into clear claims, knowing that simplicity only holds up when every assertion is backed by defensible data. “Ask as deep as you want to go,” he says, describing the preparation required to support each assumption.
Beyond the data, Rick stresses founder–funder fit and funder–market fit. He sought investors aligned with Indomo’s specific thesis at the intersection of clinical validation and consumer-facing medtech — partners who understood both the clinical and engineering rigor required and the opportunity ahead.
➜ Capital raises work best when they are tied to the next milestone.
Each round should fund a clearly defined milestone that reduces technical, clinical, or execution risk. Pitch simplicity matters, but only when it’s supported by defensible data beneath the surface — and by investors aligned with your specific thesis, not short-term momentum.
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