Tom Fogarty Prize offers $100K for medtech innovation

Dr. Tom Fogarty invented the Fogarty balloon embolectomy catheter and founded or co-founded more than 45 medtech companies. [Photo courtesy of Fogarty Innovation]

Nominations open March 24 for the new Thomas J. Fogarty Prize for medtech innovation, funded by the Linda and Mike Mussallem Foundation and law firm Wilson Sonsini.

The $100,000 prize is named after balloon embolectomy catheter inventor and cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Tom Fogarty.

“Tom’s constant refrain, ‘There must be a better way,’ has inspired countless innovators to search for new solutions to important problems in patient care,” former Edwards Lifesciences CEO and Chair Mike Mussallem said in a news release. “We are proud to take part in the inaugural Fogarty Prize, which honors the magnitude of Tom’s contributions to healthcare while recognizing the next generation of trailblazers who are developing transformational medical technologies today.”

Fogarty Prize nominations are due by the end of July, with one or more winners to be named in August. The prize will recognize “a singular, clinically impactful technology, which differentiates it from a lifetime achievement award.” Recipients must be individuals (as many as three per award) rather than companies.

The winners will be selected by an independent committee including Mussallem, Abel and Wolf Consulting Partner Dorothy Abel, Perceive Biotherapeutics CEO K. Angela Macfarlane, Johnson & Johnson Innovation Global Head of Consumer Health Investments Asha Nayak, Stanford University School of Medicine Professor of Surgery Carla Pugh, and medtech entrepreneurs Allan Will and Bill Starling.

The prize will be administered by nonprofit educational medtech incubator and accelerator Fogarty Innovation.

“The process of translating an idea into a commercially available medical device or therapy is hard,” Fogarty Innovation CEO Andrew Cleeland said in the release. “It’s a long, costly process that involves navigating a multi-stakeholder landscape far more intricate than most industries. This award illuminates and acknowledges the collaboration and grit required to drive a new therapy to patients and achieve broad acceptance and use.”

And it’s not just about a good idea, the prize organizers said, quoting Fogerty: “An idea by itself has no importance whatsoever. It’s the implementation of that idea and the acceptance by others that bring true benefit to our patients.”

Fogerty’s minimally invasive balloon embolectomy catheter offered a lower-risk alternative to an open surgical procedure that often resulted in amputation. But he could not find a device manufacturer to partner with until Edwards Laboratories stepped up in 1969.

Related: What is minimally invasive medtech? Device engineers, executives and experts weigh in

Fogarty — now age 91 — had 190 medical patents through his career and also developed the Hancock Tissue Heart Valve and the AneuRx Endovascular Aortic Stent Graft. He founded or co-founded more than 45 medtech companies and in 2007 launched Fogarty Innovation to help device innovators and young companies advance innovative medtech.

The Fogerty Prize is one of the ways Mussallem and his wife, Linda, are supporting medtech innovation in four areas through their family foundation.

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