An Interview with Medtronic’s Brett Wall, Sr. VP and President, Brain Therapies and Scott Hutton, VP and General Manager, Neurosurgery
2 min read
Written by Anne Staylor
Former Senior Editor, Medtech Insight. +25 years in various leadership roles in business intelligence, marketing, communications, product management, and consulting for medical device industry, hospitals, physician groups, insurers. Registered nurse and former Director of Marketing for a national ambulatory surgery company.
Brett Wall, Sr. Vice President and President, Brain Therapies, Medtronic, and Scott Hutton, Medtronic’s Vice President and General Manager, Neurosurgery, spoke to BioMedGPS at the recent Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) meeting in San Diego regarding: the structure and strategy behind the Restorative Therapies Group’s newly formed Brain Therapies division, which includes:
Click to listen to the SmartTRAK Medtronic Interview.
Interview Questions by Time Code:
00:22 The CNS meeting is the coming out party for Medtronic’s new Brain Therapies Division. Can you talk about the new structure, the strategy behind that, and what it means for Medtronic?
01:58 Are there any synergies as far as innovation between these groups? Are we going to see something new from Medtronic?
04:15 You’re launching a new StealthStation DBS software update, the Synergy Cranial v3.0, to aid in DBS placement for frame-based procedures. How does this new integrated approach differentiate Medtronic in the market, particulary since St. Jude and Boston's DBS systems are expected to reach the US market this year? (Editor’s Note: St. Jude received FDA approval and launched its Infinity DBS System in the US Oct. 5, 2016.)
05:31 Medtronic has a strategic relationship with and has invested in Mazor Robotics, and is working on a cranial robot research project. So what can we expect from Medtronic on the robotics front?
06:45 Is the cranial robot more like Mazor's image-guided technology? Or is it more computer-assisted surgery, similar to Intuitive Surgical?
07:18 What is your installed base (i.e., of navigation systems worldwide)?