Paul Anderson is the Managing Director of Orthocell (ASX:OCC), a regenerative medicine company dedicated to the development of novel collagen medical devices and cellular therapies for the repair and regeneration of human tendons, bone, nerve and cartilage defects.

What’s your journey in becoming a Managing Director?
I started with a health science background working within the hospital critical care setting before moving into a sales role within the surgical medical device, capital goods and consumables industry. From these roles I graduated into management positions before being presented with an opportunity to enter into a start-up company in the area of tissue regeneration back in 2000. I started as a national sales director before migrating into the Managing Director role. From there we drove the company to a trade sale with an American multinational company effecting one of the early regen med transactions. Following this I started Orthocell (ASX:OCC) on the back of some very exciting intellectual property (IP) that I became aware of from the University of Western Australia that addressed an area of clinical need for soft tissue repair and regeneration. Along the way, I have built knowledge of how to translate and guide growth of new medical technologies and approaches.

Tell us a bit about your business and how you are commercializing?
Orthocell works in the musculoskeletal regenerative medicine space and has developed two product platforms that are used in a variety of degenerate or torn soft tissue injuries. Firstly, a collagen based medical device that assists in the surgical repair and regeneration of Bone, Tendon and Nerve tissue and secondly a non-surgical cell-based therapy for the regeneration of degenerate tendon tissue. Both are in advanced stages of development and regulatory approval processes with our first product recently approved for sale in Europe. Further to this we are driving our products into the US market and are actively involved in the regulatory submissions of our products into the USA, Europe and Asian markets.

How are you managing with the current COVID-19 pandemic on both business and personal front?
Certainly, these have been challenging times both professionally and personally. We have had to closely examine all the potential risks to our business and to proactively manage those risks. We have enacted the appropriate spacing guidelines and procedures and have managed our workforce enabling those who can work from home to do so. We have had some disruption to our surgical cases, however we are a pre material revenue Company and hence not greatly affected by a temporary suspension of surgeries. We have continued to drive our R&D activities and to continue to develop the regulatory submissions which are so important to the increasing value of our opportunities. We look for the positives in this situation and whilst we have seen some interruptions, I have been delighted with the professionalism of our staff, the maintenance of our productivity and the ability for us to embrace technology to improve our communication internally and across our stakeholders.

What’s the most exciting thing about running your business?
To develop products and technologies and to guide those technologies through proof of concept, animal studies, human studies and regulatory approvals is a deeply satisfying process. However, the most fulfilling experience is to see those products make profound impacts on peoples’ lives and this has been and is an absolute privilege beyond my expectations.

How do you measure success?
Ultimately success is governed by the Company’s ability to continue to add value and maximise shareholder return. This in my mind however is also entwined with the ability to contribute to society and to add to the net national benefit through the generation of IP and the upskilling of our workforce to effectively make a difference.

What do you think is the most important quality of being a Managing Director of a listed company?
Certainly, one needs to be robust, however the key attributes lie in understanding the strategic pathway of the Company and the experience of how to create a team, build culture within a team, and to lay out a defined pathway enabling them to execute. We want our employees to have ownership of their positions and projects, to work with passion and enthusiasm and to underpin this with a knowledge-based approach all within a quality assured process.

What is your favourite book?
That’s a tough question! I do enjoy non-fiction and have a fascination for maritime history. However, I have recently finished a book Titled ‘As Far as The Eye Can See; A History of Seeing’. A fascinating historical look at how we see things through our eyes and the effect changing technology has on what we see and who we are as a society. A fascinating and thought-provoking work by a great new Author in S Denham Wade.

What message do you want to send to our readership in Asia?
Orthocell is company with a suite of innovative, largely de risked regenerative medicine products that are strongly differentiated in the global market. We are well funded with a run way that will enable the achievement of our significant milestones and multiply our market capitalisation.

How can people connect with you?
Email:
Website: https://www.orthocell.com.au/

Jason Waller is the CEO of InteliCare (ASX:ICR), an Australian-based initiative, aiming to address the personal, social, economic and geographic challenges faced by Australia’s ageing population. InteliCare Home enables families and caregivers the ability to “check-in” on the wellbeing of an elderly or disabled person living independently through an easy-to-use app. This non-intrusive way of monitoring the person’s health and safety will instantly alert you to irregular activity and can lead to early prevention of a fall or other health problem.

What’s your journey in becoming a CEO?
I followed a fairly unusual path because I started my career as an Air Force pilot. I did this for over 20 years and had the privilege of holding commands in both combat and peace-time operations. I decided to leave the Air Force so my family could have a more stable life, but also to challenge myself on a new front. It turns out, the skills required when leading a combat unit are very similar to a CEO in business. In the end, it’s all about people, and people have the same traits, wants and motivations across nearly all disciplines.

Tell us a bit about your business and how you are commercializing?
InteliCare is an Australian technology company founded in January 2016 that has commercialised a predictive analytics engine hardware and software system for use in the aged care and health industries. InteliCare believes Australians deserve to age with dignity and through its business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) solutions built on its proprietary internet of things (IOT) platform utilising smart sensors and artificial intelligence (AI), InteliCare aims to enable people to stay in their own homes for longer while empowering healthcare providers to deliver higher quality, more efficient services. The R&D phase was largely completed in 2019 and now a full commercialisation program is underway.

How are you managing with the current COVID-19 pandemic on both business and personal front?
I felt fairly on in the piece that we were heading for isolation, so as a company we practiced the procedure at smaller scales and then had a full stay-at-home exercise well before it became the norm. We then went into stay-at-home mode before it became required by the government. Hence, it really wasn’t a big speed-bump, if anything, COVID-19 has made us busier. This is because the system has highlighted the need to protect the elderly. On a personal front, I’m really enjoying working alongside my wife and three University-aged kids. It’s unexpected but very welcoming family time. I do miss the day-to-day camaraderie of the team. However, we’re all on a continuous Microsoft Teams call during the day, so there’s lots of interaction.

What’s the most exciting thing about running your business?
The people – it’s always about the people. Seeing what they can do, how innovative and entrepreneurial they are and how they solve complex problems is really what fascinates me. It also keeps me on my toes as I have to keep up with them. The feeling when it all comes together, especially when there were hard, intractable problems, is terrific. It’s very much what the military strives to foster, and it’s just as powerful in the private sector.

How do you measure success?
For a listed company, it’s folded into the share price. At the end of the day, we are about creating shareholder wealth. However, and it’s a BIG “however”, doing good by helping society is core to our company’s values. Therefore, I will measure my success more on building and selling a great product that changes lives, because that will deliver the shareholder returns in the end.

What do you think is the most important quality of being a CEO of a listed company?
Leadership, end of story.

What is your favourite book?
I have many favourites because I read across lots of different domains. However, an unusual pick, but one I have recently recommended to many people, is “Open”, the autobiography of Andre Agassi. I would hardly ever read, let alone recommend a biography, but this is more a lesson on overcoming failure. You can’t put it down. It’s even better if you don’t really follow tennis. I’d love to meet the man.

How can people connect with you?
Email:
InteliCare Website: https://intelicare.com.au/

Prof. Rob Phillips is the Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientist of Uscom Limited (ASX:UCM), a healthcare equipment company with a mission to demonstrate leadership in science and create non-invasive devices that guide clinicians to improved clinical care and patient outcomes. Uscom is an emerging global leader in non-invasive cardiovascular and pulmonary medical devices, developing innovative technologies to solve the challenges of global disease and health care.

What’s your journey in becoming a CEO?
I was born on the east coast of Australia, and grew up in Fiji, then a small outback city in central Australia and was educated at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane Australia. I have both a clinical and commercial background which is important for managing a medical technology company. I have a PhD and MPhil in medicine and am an Adjunct Associate Professor in cardiovascular physiology and ultrasound monitoring in the School of Medicine at The University of Queensland and am a visiting Professor in Cardiovascular Physiology and Critical Care at the Jining University Medical School, in Shandong, China.

I developed the technical and clinical concepts of the USCOM 1A haemodynamic monitor and converted these concepts via translational research into new technologies and global, lifesaving medical devices. I received an Australian Post Graduate Award, the Singaporean Global Entropolis Technology Award, and was a finalist in the CNN, Google, Time, Science, NYSE World Technology Awards in Health and Medicine recognizing technologies most likely to change global health.

I am active in teaching, writing, researching and reviewing in the field of ultrasound, circulation and cardiovascular monitoring, and am an innovator and pioneer in the field of digital Ultrasound having authored over 40 patents, 75 publications and 200 international presentations.
I am the founder of Uscom Limited and took the Company to public listing, and now have more than 15yrs experience as Chairman and CEO of an ASX listed medical technology company. I have grown the company to cover 4 continents, and successfully raised capital and engineered the acquisition and integration of two international medical device companies.

Tell us a bit about your business and how you are commercializing?
Uscom Limited is a medical technology company specialising in non-invasive cardiovascular and pulmonary medical devices. Our mission is to conceive and develop innovative technologies which provide global health solutions that can be utilised at the critical care level all the way through to home care environments. It’s amazing that we depend so critically on the circulation for survival, yet measure and manage it so poorly and infrequently. This also means we know so little about the underlying pathophysiology of heart failure, hypertension, sepsis, asthma, and COPD, diseases which are responsible for more the 75% of global mortality. We believe that the highest quality technologies drive the best quality medical care, and will improve their treatment, and it’s our devices which can lead this clinical charge. Care of the heart, vessels and lungs is critical for survival, and it is our speciality. We have three suites of devices, some developed in house and the others acquired by strategic acquisitions.

Commercialisation is a complex business requiring development of products, technical testing and clinical validation of the technologies, manufacturing logistics, regulatory approvals across global jurisdictions to a variety of specifications. Once the product is complete the development of a business model, global distribution channels, and operational management across multiple legal and commercial jurisdictions is required to convert this science into revenue. Uscom has manufacturing and operational centres in Sydney and Budapest, and has recently opened a wholly owned subsidiary to service the Chinese market. We are committed to the Chinese health system having operated there for over 15 years and see China and SE Asia as our neighbours and regional markets. The recent opening of our Beijing based subsidiary is an exciting step for us, and one which is immediately impacting our profitability.

How are you managing with the current COVID-19 pandemic on both business and personal front?
From a business point of view Uscom creates devices which are critical to the management of infectious diseases, and specifically COVID-19, so we have been busy on the frontline in Wuhan with our Chinese colleagues, as well as supporting our global clinicians as they implement optimal strategies throughout the rest of the world following the spread of the disease. Our USCOM 1A device was specifically recommended as the technology to treat adult and children with severe COVID-19 disease by the Chinese Health and Medicine Commission of the People’s Republic of China and the international Society for Critical Care Medicine Guidelines for treatment of sepsis in Children, so we are definitely at the centre of events in COVID-19. While most people are aware of the risk of COVID-19 pneumonia, the latest data demonstrates that you are 10 times more likely to die from heart failure as you are respiratory failure, so the USCOM 1A, which measures, monitors and guides cardiovascular therapy in sepsis, should be more frequently deployed than ventilators. As hospitals around the world stabilise and recognise the importance of adequately equipping hospitals to deal with the increasing incidence and severity of annual infectious diseases, and with our COVID-19 experience, we expect a significant number of new commissions from health care systems around the world.
At a personal level I’m accustomed to running my business from a computer out of a briefcase in a hotel room before leaping on a plane. So, for me things haven’t changed much, except I’m unit bound, and my home office provides slightly more comfort and permanence than the average airport terminal.

What’s the most exciting thing about running your business?
Opportunity; clinical and commercial. We are on the cusp of changing the way medicine is delivered to patients with diseases that kill 75% of the human population. We are saving lives of adults and children around the world and reducing the cost of delivering that care in critical care, paediatrics, emergency care, anaesthesia, maternal health, oncology, and increasingly eHealth. We are developing new digital service delivery models in eHealth, and believe that the future of eHealth is based on the quality of the front-end sensors. While software can be created in a few months and is without barrier to entry, high quality core physiologic sensors take years of development, testing and evolution. It is these advanced sensors which determine the value of results eHealth can deliver, and its Uscom which has the highest quality non-invasive cardiovascular and pulmonary sensors. That is exciting. Commercially of course having the highest quality digital technologies to deal with cardiac, vascular and pulmonary disease creates an almost untappable abundance of opportunity. Bringing clinical and commercial expertise together to create a global health vision creates a unique opportunity to build a great global medical technology business of scale and social impact at a time when the value of world health is perceived as increasingly critical.

How do you measure success?
Corporate success is developing and executing a global strategy to achieve sustained revenue growth to generate shareholder wealth and social benefit. Personal success is the pleasure you get from your life. It differs for each of us and is both endogenous and cultivated; life is a function of your circumstances and what you make of it. Im fortunate, I love my work and have plenty of interests.

What do you think is the most important quality of being a CEO of a listed company?
Bravery. You have to be brave enough to lead, inspire, motivate, and achieve. You have to be brave enough to be decisive and attack, and brave enough to respond to change and retreat if necessary. A perfect decision today may be a fail tomorrow, so knowing your business in detail and monitoring the changes in global culture, economics and sentiment are critical to maintaining a fine-tuned international strategy.

What is your favourite book?
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. A view of the world through the eyes of a tortured soul that asks the questions that make us profoundly uncomfortable and helps explain the world around us.

What message do you want to send to our readership in Asia?
Do good and do well. Uscom is committed to a clear and progressive global vision based on scientific leadership and a sound commercial strategy. Asia is our home, and a perfect market for us with rapidly increasing health expectations and increasingly sophisticated medical systems keen to adopt the most advanced technologies.

How can people connect with you?
Email:
Uscom Website: https://www.uscom.com.au/