Innovation New Jersey
  • Home
  • Our Coalition
    • Contact Us
  • News
  • Resources
    • State Supports
    • Federal Supports
    • Higher Ed Supports
  • Join Us

Innovation News

Everything Innovation. Everything New Jersey.
Follow us and stay connected.

NJ Resources Support Serial Entrepreneur David Fischell’s  Mission to Create Life-Saving Medical Devices

8/4/2015

0 Comments

 
Trenton, NJ - The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) continues its series highlighting how entrepreneurs and investors are helping to build New Jersey’s technology ecosystem. Serial entrepreneur Dr. David Fischell, of Fair Haven, has founded and led more than a dozen medical device companies to success in the last 20 years. To Fischell, developing medical devices is a family affair. David, along with his father Dr. Robert Fischell, a physicist, and his brother Dr. Tim Fischell, a cardiologist, started New Providence-based Svelte Medical Systems in 2007.
The company produces a cost-effective expandable coronary stent system featuring the smallest diameter in the industry. This stent has led to a new standard of care in treating the buildup of plaque in the coronary arteries feeding blood to the heart, known as atherosclerosis.  Svelte's legacy follows the Fischells' work on stent design begun in late 1993, that ultimately led to David's design of the Cordis CypherTM stent, the world's first drug eluting stent sold by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and implanted in more than five million patients.

David Fischell holds 140 issued US patents, and in total, the Fischell family has more than 250 patents to its name. Their medical device inventions run the gamut from implantable devices that detect and treat epileptic seizures to catheters used to cure high blood pressure.

“Serial entrepreneurs like Dr. Fischell enjoy the challenge of identifying unmet needs and finding ways to use technology to address those challenges,” EDA CEO Melissa Orsen said. “This fosters a spirit of innovation that fuels New Jersey’s technology ecosystem by creating jobs, and reinforcing the State’s image as a place for technology businesses to grow and thrive.”

Fischell currently serves as the CEO of Angel Medical Systems, a medical device company in Shrewsbury that he founded with his father and brother, in 2001.  Angel Medical is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval for its implantable GuardianTM System, designed to detect and alert patients to the onset of a heart attack, allowing them to seek immediate help.

Both Svelte Medical Systems and Angel Medical Systems have taken advantage of State resources including the Technology Business Tax Certificate Transfer (NOL) Program. Svelte Medical Systems also raised $4.8 million last year from David and Robert Fischell and other investors who were able to benefit from the State’s Angel Investor Tax Credit Program.

After completing a PhD in Applied Physics at Cornell University in 1979, Fischell moved to New Jersey and took a job at Bell Laboratories' largest facility in Holmdel, where he spent his time performing and then directing research and development projects. He left Bell Laboratories in 1991 to focus on creating medical devices. 

Like many New Jersey entrepreneurs, Fischell is active in several organizations that encourage collaboration within the entrepreneurial community. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, headquartered in Piscataway, whose core mission is to foster innovation and excellence. He’s also a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a Trustee of Cornell University, his alma mater.

@NJEDATech spoke with Fischell about his experience growing companies in New Jersey:

What attracted you to New Jersey as the place to grow your medical device companies?

There are two key reasons why Svelte and Angel Medical are located in New Jersey instead of the more dense centers of medical device manufacturing such as Minneapolis or the Bay area in California. First is the wonderful environment for life and raising a family that my wife Sarah, a former Bell Labs engineer and department head, and I found in Monmouth County. Bell got us here, but the great schools, proximity to New York City and coastal environment have kept us here.

The second, and just as important, reason is the availability of the right talent for staffing our companies. Svelte has many former J&J employees, as New Jersey had been a center for stent development in the 1990s. The availability of lots of talent with drug development and manufacturing capability was also helpful as Svelte's top-of-the-line product is a drug eluting stent that prevents regrowth of tissue inside of the stent (called “restenosis”). For Angel Medical, whose product is primarily software, the leadership and much of the technical staff were also ex-Bell Labs employees.  While it might seem strange to be using telecommunications engineers to develop medical technology, it should be remembered that among other things, Bell Labs pioneered the process of designing software that never breaks or crashes.

You’ve been quite successful in leveraging State resources to help grow your company. Can you please describe how these companies benefited from the Angel Tax Credit and the NOL program?

It is perhaps the NOL program that has been the most beneficial to both Svelte and Angel Medical, bringing in millions of dollars over a ten-year period that is non-dilutive to shareholders.  It has really helped during recent years as the venture capital industry has moved away from funding medical device ventures because of the time and cost for return on investment. As a result, angel investments have become a much more important part of funding, with programs like the Angel Tax Credit being helpful in motivating such investment.

What piece of advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs just starting out?

It is all about the right starting team. Your initial group needs to be able to go from work as individual contributors when you begin, to managers of a group or department as the venture grows.  Such were the four people that formed, with me, the starting team at Angel Medical. My starting team of Jonathan Harwood, Steve Johnson, Dave Keenan and Rich Bantel were each critical to our success.  All having roots from Bell Labs, they eventually became Chief Technology Officer, Vice President of Research Development, Vice President - Clinical and Regulatory, and Director of Software Development as the company grew.

For more information about resources available to support New Jersey’s technology industry, visit http://www.njeda.com/tls and follow @NJEDATech on Twitter and LinkedIn.  

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Do not miss a single innovative moment and sign up for our newsletter!
    Weekly updates


    Categories

    All
    3D Printing
    Academia
    Acquisitions
    Aerospace
    Agriculture
    AIDS
    Algae
    Alumni
    Animals
    Architecture
    Astrophysics
    Autism
    Awards
    Big Data
    Bioethics
    Biofuel
    Biomedical
    BioNJ
    Bioterrorism
    Bit Coins
    Brain Health
    Business
    Camden
    Cancer
    CCollege
    Cellular
    Centenary
    Chemistry
    ChooseNJ
    Climate Change
    Clinical Trials
    Cloud Tech
    Collaboration
    Computing
    Congress
    Coriell
    Council On Innovation
    Crowdfunding
    Cybersecurity
    DARPA
    Defense
    Degree
    Dementia
    Dental Health
    DOC
    DOD
    DOE
    Drew
    Drones
    Drug Creation
    Einstein's Alley
    Electricity
    Energy
    Engineering
    Entrepreneurship
    Environmental
    FAA
    Fairleigh Dickinson
    FDA
    Federal Budget
    Federal Government
    Federal Labs
    Federal Program
    Finance
    Food Science
    Fort Monmouth
    Fuel Cells
    Funding
    Genome
    Geography
    Geology
    Global Competition
    Google
    Governor Christie
    Grant
    Hackensack
    HackensackUMC
    Healthcare
    Health Care
    HHS
    HINJ
    Hospitals
    Immigration
    Incubator
    Infrastructure
    International
    Internet
    Investor
    IoT
    IP
    IT
    Jobs
    Johnson & Johnson
    K-12
    Kean
    Kessler
    Legislation
    Logistics
    Manufacturing
    Medical Devices
    Med School
    Mental Health
    Mentor
    Microorganisms
    Molecular Biology
    Montclair
    NAS
    Neuroscience
    Newark
    New Jersey
    NIFA
    NIH
    NIST
    NJBDA
    NJBIA
    NJ Chemistry Council
    NJCU
    NJDOLWD
    NJEDA
    NJEDge
    NJHF
    NJII
    NJIT
    NJMEP
    NJPAC
    NJPRO
    NJTC
    Nonprofit
    NSF
    OpEd
    Open Data
    OSHE
    OSTP
    Parasite
    Patents
    Paterson
    Patients
    Perth Amboy
    Pharma
    POTUS
    PPPL
    Princeton
    Prosthetics
    Ranking
    Rare Disease
    R&D Council
    Report
    Resiliency
    Rider
    Robotics
    Rowan
    Rutgers
    SBA
    Seton Hall
    Siemens
    Smart Car
    Smart Cities
    Software
    Solar
    Space
    SSTI
    Startup
    State Government
    STEM
    Stevens
    Stockton
    Subatomic
    Supports
    Sustainability
    Taxes
    TCNJ
    Teachers
    Telecom
    Therapy
    Thermodynamics
    Transportation
    Undergraduate
    USEDA
    Verizon
    Video Game
    Virtual Reality
    Water
    WHO
    William Paterson
    Women In STEM
    Workforce Development

Home   Coalition   News   Resources   Events   Join Us
Picture
Innovation New Jersey Coalition
222 West State Street
Suite 302
Trenton, NJ 08608
732-729-9619