MedTech Masters Q&A: Chris Rupp

What can’t Chris Rupp do? Good ques­tion. Not only is he the vice pres­i­dent of glob­al mar­ket­ing and com­mer­cial oper­a­tions for NAMSA, a world author­i­ty in med­ical device and in vit­ro diag­nos­tics preclinical/clinical research, bio­log­i­cal safe­ty test­ing and reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance, but he’s also a hus­band, dad to three kids, a com­pet­i­tive mas­ters swim­mer – and the list goes on.  

Com­ing from a health­care fam­i­ly, you could say Chris’ pas­sion for health and medtech is in his DNA. Read on to learn more about Chris and his jour­ney of going from an edu­ca­tion in chem­istry and being on the tech­ni­cal side of things to mak­ing his way to becom­ing an extreme­ly tal­ent­ed and suc­cess­ful com­mer­cial leader. 

What is your back­ground in medtech? How did you get start­ed?  

I’ve been around health­care my whole life. Both of my par­ents worked as health­care pro­fes­sion­als so I guess you could say it’s in my DNA? I got my start in lab­o­ra­to­ry sci­ence and con­tract phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal research as a chemist, which gave me ear­ly pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence in solv­ing prob­lems with data and evi­dence. But after a few years in the lab, I real­ized I was more ener­gized by inter­act­ing with cus­tomers and what prob­lems they were try­ing to solve. Like many tech­ni­cal to busi­ness career sto­ries, I pur­sued an MBA at the Uni­ver­si­ty of St. Thomas Opus Col­lege of Busi­ness to get out of the lab and in front of cus­tomers. 

That led me to Smiths Med­ical, where I spent near­ly a decade learn­ing the ins and outs of bring­ing med­ical devices from con­cept to mar­ket through a series of esca­lat­ing roles in prod­uct man­age­ment. With an inter­est in both prod­uct and ser­vice deliv­ery, I shift­ed gears and joined NAMSA to help medtech devel­op­ers nav­i­gate the com­plex world of con­tract research and reg­u­la­to­ry strat­e­gy lead­ing mar­ket­ing, prod­uct man­age­ment and com­mer­cial oper­a­tions teams. Both career expe­ri­ences have giv­en me incred­i­ble appre­ci­a­tion for how inter­dis­ci­pli­nary the medtech indus­try has become and how pas­sion­ate the peo­ple in our indus­try are dri­ven to make an impact on health­care. 

Tell us about your role at NAMSA – what are you work­ing on these days and what ener­gizes you?  

I lead our mar­ket­ing, prod­uct mange­ment and com­mer­cial oper­a­tions teams to cre­ate aware­ness and con­nect clients with the incred­i­ble peo­ple at NAMSA with exper­tise span­ning lab­o­ra­to­ry sci­ence, clin­i­cal research and reg­u­la­to­ry affairs (rang­ing from ear­ly-stage star­tups to large multi­na­tion­als) so they can move from idea to mar­ket approval as smooth­ly and quick­ly as pos­si­ble. 

Late­ly, I’ve been div­ing into how we can help clients accel­er­ate time­lines by inte­grat­ing strate­gic out­sourc­ing and cross-dis­ci­pli­nary process improve­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in areas like bio­log­i­cal safe­ty, pre­clin­i­cal research and mar­ket research. We’ve also grown our lab capa­bil­i­ties through recent acqui­si­tions, which means we can offer more sup­port for cut­ting-edge devices. 

What ener­gizes me most is see­ing our work trans­late into faster, safer patient access to life-chang­ing tech­nolo­gies and know­ing the work we do every day plays a cru­cial role in shap­ing the future of health­care. 

It’s no secret this year has been a roller­coast­er for many indus­tries includ­ing medtech with tar­iffs, FDA cuts and eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty. What are some of the chal­lenges fac­ing your cus­tomers and how are you help­ing nav­i­gate them?  

2025 has pre­sent­ed a series of chal­lenges for medtech orga­ni­za­tions. Tar­iffs on med­ical devices in some instances are more than 100% for imports, which have caused sup­ply chain volatil­i­ty and dri­ven up costs indus­try-wide. Many com­pa­nies are reeval­u­at­ing sourc­ing strate­gies, with some shift­ing pro­duc­tion out of affect­ed regions and invest­ing in U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ing. Eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty has also led to bud­get tight­en­ing with pub­lic reports shar­ing that over a third of medtech com­pa­nies have halt­ed hir­ing, with a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion delay­ing new prod­uct devel­op­ment and cap­i­tal expen­di­tures until 2026. This is com­pound­ed by FDA bud­get cuts and lay­offs and with the most recent gov­ern­ment shut­down new prod­uct appli­ca­tions are cur­rent­ly on hold. This will have a major impact on approvals for new devices and cre­ate back­logs that will chal­lenge start­up com­pa­nies and larg­er orga­ni­za­tions alike. 

Our response to these chal­lenges is to help orga­ni­za­tions remain agile by offer­ing strate­gic out­sourc­ing solu­tions to cov­er gaps caused by resource con­straints, reg­u­la­to­ry delays, or unex­pect­ed staff turnover. Our ser­vice teams are trained to step in to accel­er­ate clin­i­cal tri­al recruit­ment, sup­port com­pli­ance with evolv­ing reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards or rapid­ly mit­i­gate audit find­ings.  

How can com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gies be help­ful in nav­i­gat­ing some of the chal­lenges medtech com­pa­nies are fac­ing?  

Effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tions are mis­sion-crit­i­cal in a medtech land­scape shaped by reg­u­la­to­ry com­plex­i­ty, health­care pol­i­cy and pub­lic opin­ion. In times of change and uncer­tain­ty rang­ing from sup­ply dis­rup­tions, prod­uct recalls, or chang­ing reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards I feel that hav­ing a play­book with robust com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools ensures infor­ma­tion is dis­sem­i­nat­ed prompt­ly, accu­rate­ly, and in a way that builds trust with clients, clin­i­cians, reg­u­la­tors, and patients. In 2025, lever­ag­ing dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion plat­forms are essen­tial to facil­i­tate rapid updates, syn­chro­nize cross-func­tion­al teams, sup­port reg­u­la­to­ry dia­logue and coor­di­nate respons­es giv­en how dis­persed work has become across time zones and hybrid work teams. 

Why do you think the health care and medtech indus­try is so promi­nent in Min­neso­ta?  

There are many rea­sons for Minnesota’s lead­er­ship, but what stands out to me is the col­lab­o­ra­tive cul­ture that brings clin­i­cians, engi­neers, entre­pre­neurs, pay­ers, reg­u­la­tors and pub­lic health lead­ers rou­tine­ly togeth­er to part­ner across bound­aries to dri­ve progress. This net­work effect is pos­si­ble through orga­ni­za­tions like Med­ical Alley and pro­grams like Min­neso­ta MedTech 3.0, which align stake­hold­ers around shared goals. There are more than 500 medtech com­pa­nies of all sizes in this state alone, which cre­ates a vibrant com­mu­ni­ty of pro­fes­sion­als all dri­ven to make an impact on health­care.  

Is there any­thing else you’d like to add that we haven’t asked about?  

One last thing that deserves atten­tion is how medtech orga­ni­za­tions are adapt­ing to the con­ver­gence of dig­i­tal health, AI and real-world data ana­lyt­ics. The inte­gra­tion of soft­ware as a med­ical device (SaMD) and the increase in machine learn­ing enabled tools are reshap­ing not just the reg­u­la­to­ry land­scape, but also how com­pa­nies demon­strate val­ue to increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed pro­cure­ment and pay­er audi­ences. As medtech becomes more tech­nol­o­gy-inten­sive, the need for pro­fes­sion­als who can bridge clin­i­cal, tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial exper­tise is greater than ever. 

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We’re sure glad Chris made the deci­sion to get out of the lab and “come to the dark side!” And we’re also so appre­cia­tive that he took the time to share his won­der­ful insights with us here. You can also hear more from Chris in a recent pod­cast inter­view he did on The MedTech Expe­ri­ence. 

If you haven’t already, make sure to check out our pre­vi­ous Q&As with Frank Jaskulke, vice pres­i­dent of sales and busi­ness devel­op­ment at Avio Medtech Con­sult­ing; Mark Gard­ner, founder and man­ag­ing part­ner of Gard­ner Law and Chrysalis Incu­ba­tor; Aman­da Ped­er­sen, senior edi­tor of MD+DI; Kylle Jor­dan, busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ag­er at Des­ti­na­tion Med­ical Cen­ter; and Chris New­mark­er, edi­tor in chief, life sci­ences for Mass­De­vice and Med­ical Design & Out­sourc­ing. 

Do you have a life-chang­ing inno­va­tion and are look­ing for help to bring it to mar­ket? We’d love to hear more! Con­tact us for a com­pli­men­ta­ry PR strat­e­gy ses­sion and brain­storm.