President & CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, Linking Business & Healthcare - Meet Dr. Arlen Meyers
I have created several medical devices and digital health companies. Most of them failed. Some are on life support, and they are included on my long failure resume. I am on my third career pivot.
My primary research centers around biomedical and health innovation and entrepreneurship and life science technology commercialization.
I teach at the University of Colorado-Denver, consult, and speak to companies, governments, colleges, and universities around the world who need my expertise and contacts in the areas of bio entrepreneurship, bioscience, healthcare, healthcare IT, medical tourism -- nationally and internationally, new product development, product design, and financing new ventures.
What is your personal Story?
I'm frequently asked, "So, what's your story? Did you ever think you'd wind up where you are now?" (Spoiler alert: Sort of) In case you missed taking English Lit in college, most stories and novels have to do with person v person, person v nature, or person v themselves. The English final usually had some sort of question, roughly translated as "How does the main character/protagonist change or grow?"
Of course, this is the stuff of novels, novellas, and short stories. Nowadays, you have to tell your story on your LinkedIn profile or in a 3-minute YouTube video, particularly if you are pitching your company in front of investors. But, to succeed, you have to tell a story. Since investors buy emotionally and justify rationally like the rest of us, the better the story and the more engaging, the more likely you will get the seed money, they couldn't care less about the details of the sword you are using to slay the dragons.
Here's my career story:
I'm told I was named after the composer who wrote: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in 1939, Harold Arlen. As an inner-city kid from Philly, I had several summer jobs...selling newspapers on the Atlantic City beach, busboy, unloading lumber from freight cars, an apprentice plumber on a construction lot, a sugar boiler for Franklin Sugar inside of a stifling hot plant on the Delaware River, and packing gelatin capsules in my father's corner drug store in an urban neighborhood. I played sandlot baseball but never made the starting lineup. I wore #44 on my Monteray Braves Uniform.
I attended an all-boys magnet public high school that my father and several uncles attended. Central, the second-oldest continuously used public high school in the United States, was founded in 1836 and is a four-year university preparatory magnet school. I went to a small liberal arts college because my "premed advisor" told me students had a good track record getting into medical school. I majored in biology because I was told that's what medical schools wanted, but I was more interested in the social sciences and humanities. The college was the first college created in the new United States after the treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War. Its founders, John Dickinson and Benjamin Rush, a colonial physician entrepreneur, described the mission as preparing graduates "to practice the useful arts."
Truth be told, I had average talent, lots of opportunity, a whole bunch of luck, and some determination. In retrospect, I guess I hid my innerpreneur while I was busy memorizing a bunch of stuff along the way. After all, medicine is a culture of conformity, not a culture of creativity. Fortunately, I was accepted to medical school and did a residency in otolaryngology (ear, nose, and throat surgery). By the time I completed my residency, the Vietnam War was over.
My father was a WWII vet (US Army Air Corps meteorologist stationed in Karachi), pharmacist, and instructor in a pharmacy school. My mother was a housekeeper and part-time amateur artist, both of whom were the children of Eastern Europe immigrants. Their early days were hard, and the foreign language jokes were part of the family lore. Eventually, my older sister and I were able to translate the punchlines. I was recruited out of my residency to be on the faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where I spent 40 years as an academic surgeon, spending part of those years in private practice, community hospitals, safety net hospitals, the VA, and the Indian Health Service. The missions were teaching, research, development, patient care, and community service.
I graduated with an MBA in 1984 and was the only healthcare professional in my class. The Wall Street Journal seemed increasingly more interesting to me than the New England Journal. During that time, I was part of a team that invented a device that optically detected superficial cancers of the mouth and the aerodigestive system. I had no clue what to do next to get it to patients, and no one seemed interested in teaching me. So, the challenge sent me on the less traveled road, i.e., innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology commercialization. I developed some ideas as a National Library of Medicine fellow, a Harvard-Macy Fellow (for physician educators trying to launch a project), and a Fulbright Scholar working at King's Business, the technology commercialization office of Kings College London.
Along the way, I founded or co-founded several companies and several educational initiatives, including a global biomedical and clinical innovation and entrepreneurship network. Most of them failed. I figure my season record is 2-1-2. I still can't hit the curve ball. The next exit on the biomedical innovation highway took me to where I am now. The missions are teaching, research, development, consulting, and community service. Now I do company and founder care instead of patient care and serve on non-profit and for-profit boards, consulting, and advisory roles. So, what's next? Well, that's another story, and I still have no clue. What's your story?
What does inclusive leadership mean to you?
What inspired you to pursue a career in biomedical and clinical innovation? Can you tell us more about your roles as a physician entrepreneur?
During my academic career, myself and a team of others invented a device to detect oral cancer in the mouth. While patented it, we could never get it over the goal line, i.e. go through the process of deploying it and making it available in the market so doctors could use it to help patients. That taught me several lessons.
Every inventor thinks they have a good idea. Most of time it is just that and not something that will ever see the light of day. Doctors don’t have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be entrepreneurs. I needed to fill the gaps, not just for myself, but for others who were in the same situation as me. That’s why we created the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs.
What is your greatest vision in the years to come as a professor at the University of Colorado Denver? How do you empower your students?
Our vision at SoPE is to close global health outcome disparities by providing our members and students with education, resources, networks, mentors, peer support and non-clinical career guidance to help them get their ideas to patients.
How could GlobalMindED further support the efforts that you are a part of?
GlobalMindED can help close the diversity gaps in the medical workforce and prepare students to win the 4th industrial revolution.
