MedTech Masters Q&A: Amanda Pedersen

In the third, and final (for now), Medtech Mas­ters Q&A install­ment, Aman­da Ped­er­sen took the time to answer some ques­tions for us so we can get to know her a lit­tle bet­ter. Aman­da is the senior edi­tor of MD+DI and has been cov­er­ing the medtech indus­try for more than 17 years. Her excel­lent Ped­er­sen POV col­umn has earned her three Neal Award final­ist nods and two wins. Amanda’s report­ing is always thor­ough and insight­ful and is one of our own team’s go-to sources to stay on top of what’s going on in the medtech indus­try. Read on to learn more about Amanda!

You have been cov­er­ing the medtech indus­try for quite some time. Can you share a lit­tle bit about your career jour­ney and how you got to where you are today?

I began my career in com­mu­ni­ty jour­nal­ism, first as an edu­ca­tion reporter for my home­town paper in Gales­burg, IL and lat­er as a coun­ty gov­ern­ment reporter for a paper in Mari­et­ta, GA. One day I was dri­ving on I‑75 in Atlanta, GA in 2006 when I got a call about a job for a med­ical device pub­li­ca­tion. I hon­est­ly didn’t under­stand why they were inter­est­ed in me – I didn’t have a med­ical degree!  

“It’s like sci­ence and stuff,” the edi­tor on the oth­er end of the line explained (yes, he said “stuff”). 

So, I took a leap of faith and agreed to inter­view for the posi­tion. That end­ed up being the best deci­sion of my career because it got me into the B2B pub­lish­ing world cov­er­ing medtech. I spent 10 years with what was then known as Med­ical Device Dai­ly (today it is known as BioWorld MedTech) before join­ing MD+DI in 2016. I actu­al­ly shared a longer ver­sion of this sto­ry in the inau­gur­al install­ment of Pedersen’s POV, an op-ed series that is now a two-time Neal Award win­ner for Best Commentary.

The health and medtech indus­try has nev­er been bor­ing, but the past few months have been espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing. What are some gen­er­al trends you’re see­ing right now in the industry?

You’re cer­tain­ly right about that – medtech has nev­er been bor­ing! In the past few months, we’ve seen a lot of the larg­er medtech com­pa­nies shift into active port­fo­lio man­age­ment mode. That means some tuck-in acqui­si­tions, but also a lot of spin­offs and divesti­tures. I believe this is dri­ven by the econ­o­my, glob­al trade poli­cies, and the real­iza­tion that some­times you must get small­er to get bigger.

Any pre­dic­tions or insights you have for the indus­try that you think are right around the cor­ner? 

I have a feel­ing we’re going to see a lot more spin­offs and divesti­tures before the year is over. Again, com­pa­nies are fig­ur­ing out that focus makes more sense right now than diver­si­fi­ca­tion – with a few excep­tions, of course. 

What has been some­thing mem­o­rable you’ve cov­ered dur­ing your career? Or per­haps favorite arti­cle you’ve written?

 My favorite sto­ry to cov­er was Zim­mer Biomet’s turn­around sto­ry. It’s an inspir­ing exam­ple of how a com­pa­ny that once faced daunt­ing chal­lenges man­aged to do a com­plete 180 under the right lead­er­ship. A lot of med­ical device com­pa­nies can learn from that sto­ry, espe­cial­ly if fac­ing chal­lenges relat­ed to cul­ture or a large post-merg­er inte­gra­tion, like when Zim­mer merged with Biomet.

For medtech com­pa­nies who want to pitch you with a sto­ry idea, what advice do you have for them? 

The best thing com­pa­nies can do is famil­iar­ize them­selves with the types of sto­ries we cov­er on MD+DI, and the best way to do that is by sub­scrib­ing to our e‑newsletter, MD+DI & Qmed+ Dai­ly.  

I also real­ly love telling the sto­ry behind the device, rather than just cov­er­ing Com­pa­ny A Received FDA Approval for X Device. So, any­time com­pa­nies can give me a peek behind the cur­tain and share lessons learned dur­ing the devel­op­ment phase, I’m going to be all ears! 

End­less grat­i­tude to Aman­da for tak­ing the time to share these inter­est­ing insights. We’re so lucky to have ded­i­cat­ed and tal­ent­ed jour­nal­ists like Aman­da cov­er­ing the indus­try!  

ICYMI, check out our two pre­vi­ous Q&As with Frank Jaskulke, vice pres­i­dent of sales and busi­ness devel­op­ment at Avio Medtech Con­sult­ing and Mark Gard­ner, founder and man­ag­ing part­ner of Gard­ner Law and Chrysalis Incu­ba­tor.   

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