How a Family Office Panel Evaluates Health Tech and Medical Devices
At a Family Office Club panel Q&A, attendees ask panel members about evaluating health tech and medical device investments.
An unidentified attendee asks whether panelists can evaluate a medical device. JR of the Riling Family Office asks the panel doctors whether they have invested their own funds in health tech devices and gives a biomarker example. After the Q&A, Richard C. Wilson gives a separate introduction to Family Office Club.
In this video: JR (With the Riling Family Office), Panelist (Doctor on the panel), Panelist (Panel member), Panelist (Medical device investor), Richard C. Wilson (Owner of billionaires.com and Family Office Club)
What they said
- Performance over biomarkers. A panel doctor says his interests center on performance in sports and aging, rather than biotech or biomarkers. He describes those as his personal preferences.
- Walking patterns and fall risk. The same panelist describes Upstep, an app intended for people over 65. It uses walking patterns, step patterns, step length and stride length to indicate a higher risk of falling.
- Medical device diligence. A panelist says device evaluation depends on progress through the FDA process and clinical trials, whether trial funding has been raised, and the team's industry experience. The speaker also mentions 510(k)s.
- Health tech and exits. A panelist views health tech as a technology play and says the exit strategy makes sense to them. They distinguish this from the device evaluation process.
- Qualified funds and advice. A panelist says they made one small investment in a medical device company using qualified funds. They say they could not advise the company because that would be self-dealing.
In their words
"I think health tech is a completely different world because it's a tech play, it's a lot easier. I get the exit strategy, it makes sense."
"I can't offer them advice or anything because that would be self-dealing, right?"
Why it matters if you are building or preserving great wealth
The qualified-funds example shows that an investor's contribution may have limits after the check. The panelist said they couldn't advise the medical device company, even though they had invested.
From Richard's exclusive Billionaires.com interviews
Lessons from Richard C. Wilson's one-on-one interviews, as published on each interview page.
- Anu Aga: Focus on one main cause. Her family found its giving more satisfying and impactful once it chose primary education for the underprivileged in India.
- Binod K. Chaudhary: Never chase a deal out of desperation. Stay cool and look at every part of the deal. Have your advisers and your finance team review it critically. Your counsel should review it too.
- Larry Connor: Learn from every mistake. Larry's team owns its failures and makes no excuses. They learn, change quickly, and keep getting better.
See the data
Frequently asked questions
What biomarker example did JR give?
He mentioned a biomarker other than glucose and said the glucose market was saturated.
Why had one panelist made few venture or angel investments?
The panelist said they did not know enough about those deals yet and were trying to learn.
Sources
Quotes are copied from the video captions and checked against the transcript. Timestamps link to the moment in the video. General information only, not legal, tax or investment advice.