TCT 2025 Opens with a Call to 'Channel the Genius' in Medical Innovation

This news is covered by the Medical Dialogues Bureau present at the TCT Conference 2025, being held in San Francisco.

San Francisco, October 25, 2025: The opening session of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2025 conference set a dynamic tone for the global interventional cardiology community, urging clinician-entrepreneurs to transform bold ideas into structured, evidence-driven innovation. The session, titled "So, You Want to Be an Innovator: Master the Process, Channel the Genius," featured leading voices from the medical technology ecosystem and underscored that true innovation demands both creativity and disciplined execution.

The panel, comprising Andrew Cleeland (CEO, Fogarty Innovation), Jan Garfinkle (Founder & Managing Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures), Josh Makower, MD (General Partner, NEA; Faculty Director, Stanford BioDesign), and Amr Salahieh (Founder & CEO, Avidity Partners), shared insights drawn from decades of experience in developing and commercializing breakthrough medical technologies. Moderated by Cleeland and Salahieh, the discussion emphasized that structured innovation, guided by clinical needs and strategic thinking remains the cornerstone of advancing patient care in cardiology and beyond.

From Inspiration to Execution: The Discipline Behind Discovery

The session focused on how innovators can channel creativity through structure, turning big ideas into tangible, evidence-based, and scalable healthcare solutions.

Josh Makower set the tone with a memorable line: “True innovation is disciplined imagination.” He elaborated that successful innovators don’t rely on spontaneous brilliance; they develop systematic processes that turn inspiration into outcomes. Discipline, he said, is what differentiates dreamers from doers.

Jan Garfinkle emphasized the role of persistence and adaptability in the investment ecosystem. “Funding follows clarity,” she noted, encouraging innovators to demonstrate not only their idea’s novelty but its ability to solve a real clinical problem and survive market validation.

Andrew Cleeland reflected on how effective innovation requires humility and listening. “It’s not about what you think the world needs — it’s about what patients and physicians actually need,” he said.

Collaboration and the Anatomy of Disruptive Innovation

A key theme running through the discussion was that innovation thrives at the intersection of disciplines.

• Engineers bring design and systems thinking.

• Clinicians provide deep understanding of unmet needs.

• Entrepreneurs align product vision with market dynamics.

When these groups collaborate from the start, the result is innovation that is not only technologically sound but clinically meaningful and commercially viable. Disruptive innovation are the new developments which have the capacity of changing the standard practice norms and to be able to create an innovation of that level requires a genius thinking which is goal oriented structured yet with freedom of taking risk.

The session set an inspiring tone for the TCT 2025 meeting, reaffirming that the future of cardiology depends on clinician-led, structured innovation rooted in genuine clinical need.

Reference: https://www.tctconference.com/