Episode Transcript
0:00:00 Tom Salemi: Hi, everybody, this is Tom Salemi of DeviceTalks. Welcome to the AbbottTalks podcast. Over the past few years, the world has come to recognize Abbott as a company dedicated to helping people live happier and healthier lives. In this podcast series, we’ll talk with the healthcare leaders, the executives and the engineers who are working every day to develop new technologies to help people live their best lives.
0:00:29 Tom Salemi: I know you’ll enjoy this episode of the AbbottTalks podcast. Hey everyone, this is Tom Salemi of DeviceTalks. Welcome to the AbbottTalks podcast. I’m here with managing editor Kayleen Brown. Hey Kayleen.
0:00:43 Kayleen Brown: Always a good day. Hey Tom.
0:00:47 Tom Salemi: It is always a good day and it’s a great day because we have Santosh Prabhu from Abbott Structural Heart on the program and Santosh has been a great guest of our other great podcasts. We’re excited to have him. But full disclosure to our listeners, this was a bit of a ramp up, technical wise. We had some issues getting Santosh on and this was not Santosh. I swear to God. This is not like a psychological test that we gave you to see how you’d measure up. But you, sir, are unflappable.
0:01:20 Kayleen Brown: Like, I can’t, right? No sweat. Nothing.
0:01:22 Tom Salemi: Just you’re a professional. Coffee mugs through the window at this point. So thank you for your patience and it speaks well to your temperament. So welcome to the podcast.
0:01:31 Santosh Prabhu: Thanks.
0:01:32 Tom Salemi: Before we begin this episode, I want to bring in our sponsor, Confluent Medical. I’m here with Tom Ditter. He’s Senior Director of Product Development at Confluent Medical. Tom, Confluent’s made quite a bit of noise in the medical device space this year, specifically surrounding Nitinol, which has been just really an exciting topic of the year and of the past couple of years. Before the company was Confluent, it was known as NDC, which stands for Nitinol Devices and Components.
0:01:59 Tom Salemi: Can you give us a quick overview of how Confluent got to where it is today and how your history is connected to NDC and to Nitinol.
0:02:07 Tom Ditter: The philosophy of the founders was to understand the fundamental material science behind Nitinol and to use that to design and process components made from Nitinol. Now, Confluent continues its legacy today throughout its capabilities. It focuses on the material science of not just Nitinol, but but also polymers and textiles as well.
0:02:28 Tom Salemi: That’s really interesting. And as a contract manufacturer, your job is to assist OEMs in taking a design from prototype to production. Can you give us some examples of how Confluent accomplished this recently? Few cases you’ve worked on. I know you have to probably be sparse on details, but what are some of the things you’ve been working on?
0:02:48 Tom Ditter: Confluent is fully integrated. It has a capability to take a product from prototyping to development, optimization and full scale manufacturing. We recently just worked with the OEM on a novel neurovascular stent. We assisted them with initial design iterations, process development to full blown manufacturing.
0:03:09 Tom Salemi: Tom, Confluent Medical is a contract manufacturer, which means you assist OEMs in taking design from prototype to production. Can you give us an example of how Confluent has recently accomplished this?
0:03:22 Tom Ditter: Yeah, as you mentioned, Confluent is fully integrated. We do have the capability to take a product from initial prototyping to full scale manufacturing. We recently accomplished this with a OEM that was working on a novel neurovascular stent. We worked with them on the initial design iterations, took it to process development, optimization and founded a full scale manufacturer.
0:03:43 Tom Salemi: So let’s talk a bit about your path into MedTech. We covered this, as I mentioned on an earlier podcast. You spoke about your early inspiration, your tragic inspiration to getting involved ultimately into MedTech. But talk a bit about that experience and then let’s sort of unpack how you found your way to MedTech and ultimately to Abbott.
0:04:05 Santosh Prabhu: Of course. Of course. You know, cardiovascular disease runs in my family on my father’s side of the family, and I lost my dad to a heart attack when I was just seven years old. So I’ve seen firsthand, I’ve seen firsthand the impact that cardiovascular diseases have on patients and the implications that they have on the families of these patients. So I thought it was my calling when my first job out of school was working on the design of coronary stents that would have saved my dad’s life had they been available at that time.
0:04:46 Tom Salemi: That’s remarkable. And it must be something that you. Obviously then you were younger so it was easier to draw on. But do you draw on that, that almost every day in your, in your dealings at Abbott?
0:04:57 Santosh Prabhu: Yes, that’s what, you know, that’s what keeps me passionate and motivated, you know, designing cardiovascular medical devices and then getting it, seeing it being used in patients and talking to some of our patients and clinicians and seeing firsthand the impact that these devices that Abbott has developed has on the lives of these patients.
0:05:20 Tom Salemi: That’s amazing. My grandfather, my mother’s father passed away from pneumonia two years before they came out with penicillin. And I remember my mom telling that story, and it’s something that she always carried. So I can sort of feel I can understand your connection, and it only adds to the mission. So it’s really wonderful what you do. How’d you find your way into engineering? Was it always a passion of yours, and into biomedical engineering specifically?
0:05:47 Santosh Prabhu: Well, engineering was always a passion of mine, but not always biomedical engineering. As a young boy, I was very fascinated by planes, rockets, space shuttles, and satellites. And so I wanted to study aerospace engineering and become a rocket scientist. But as I was finishing my PhD, I got a call from this company known as Guidant Corporation, and it was for a role in the team that designed coronary stents. So that piqued my interest, and I wanted to learn a little bit more about it.
0:06:25 Santosh Prabhu: Then as part of my graduate work, as part of my PhD, my research was focused on studying behavior of new materials that were used in aerospace applications using computational modeling as well as experimental bench testing techniques to evaluate these materials and characterize these materials. One of the things that I realized was that at guidance in the design of the coronary stents, they were trying to use new materials, and some of the skills that are developed were directly applicable to the design even of coronary stents.
0:07:04 Santosh Prabhu: And plus, I bought an outsider’s perspective on how these materials, these novel materials that were used for design of coronary stents would behave. So that’s how I found my way into stent or cardiovascular medical device design. And for the personal connection that I have that we just talked about, I thought this was my calling. And in 2006, the vascular division of Guidant was acquired by Abbott Laboratories. And I’ve had wonderful journey since with Abbott Labs.
0:07:39 Kayleen Brown: Well, thank you so much for sharing. This phrase we keep hearing is turning pain into purpose. And I think that is very common in the medical technology industry. And another reason why I love this industry so much. Santosh, that’s if we could zoom back a little. There’s a lot of innovation and attention to structural heart. But before we dive into the technology, can you help us unpack the actual structure of the heart? You know, talk about the valves and the roles in heart function?
0:08:10 Santosh Prabhu: Yeah, of course, of course. You know, the human heart is. Is an extraordinary pump designed by Mother Nature. It beats over 100,000 times a day, over 2 billion times in a lifetime, and pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood a day. Now, the heart has four primary valves. The aortic valve, the mitral valve, the tricuspid valve, and the pulmonary valve. Each of these valves play a crucial role in maintaining the flow of blood through the heart and into the body.
0:08:43 Santosh Prabhu: Their primary function is to allow the blood to flow in only one direction and not allow it to flow backwards as the heart beats. But these valves can get diseased and malfunction, either due to defects that you are born with, or because of the aging process and other health conditions. When they’re diseased, these valves do not close properly and get leaky, or they can get calcified and stiff and therefore not open adequately to allow the required blood flow.
0:09:17 Santosh Prabhu: People with these valve diseases often experience life altering symptoms such as chest pain, chronic fatigue, exhaustion, shortness of breath, fluid accumulation of the lungs and legs, heart palpitation and murmur, and if left untreated, it can lead to heart failure and eventually death. So those are some of the characteristics that we have to deal with as we develop some of the solutions for treating these disease states, particularly of the valve.
0:09:48 Kayleen Brown: Excellent. You touched on some of the conditions and the symptoms, if you will, of the patient experience. Has that patient profile changed over time? So is structural heart intervention still available to only the six patients, or is earlier intervention an option now?
0:10:09 Santosh Prabhu: Yeah, there are several structural heart disease states that need treatment. If you look at the, on the valve side of things, you could have aortic regurgitation or aortic stenosis. You could have mitral regurgitation, you could have tricuspid regurgitation. You could have holes in the heart, in the chambers of the heart, the atrial septal defects, the ventricular septal defects. Or you could have strokes that can potentially originate as a result of afib from the left atrial appendage.
0:10:44 Santosh Prabhu: So there are different disease states that need treatment, and most of these diseases have historically been undertreated. So the existing prevalence pools are relatively large. This is true for mitral regurgitation, tricuspid regurgitation, aortic stenosis, all the congenital and pediatric conditions, atrial fibrillation, what have you. These diseases have historically been undertreated. And one of the reasons for this is the treatment for these diseases historically has been surgery or medical therapy and surgery.
0:11:26 Santosh Prabhu: Not all people, not all patients are candidates for surgery. And the medications usually relieve the symptoms, but do not treat the underlying disease. And this is where a lot of our minimally invasive therapies that have come to fruition in the last couple of decades find themselves. Right. So companies like Abbott, we offer minimally invasive therapies for treating people suffering from some of these disease states who are not candidates for Surgery due to either age, frailty or other underlying underlying conditions.
0:12:01 Santosh Prabhu: The other thing is that the world is aging, that people are continuing to live longer. So some of these degenerative diseases, a large portion of which is structured heart diseases where the heart simply wears down, are becoming more and more prevalent. Aging is a global dynamic. Structural heart diseases are becoming more prevalent. And then on top of it, there are advancements in some of the technologies, particularly the imaging technologies. When you, when you see a disease, you can understand the disease and you can treat the disease.
0:12:30 Santosh Prabhu: So since you’re able to now visualize the interior structures of the heart using some of these imaging modalities without having to open the chest, you are able to develop solutions, also minimally invasive solutions that allow you to treat these diseases without having to perform open heart surgery. That’s where the transcatheter solutions come to play.
0:12:51 Tom Salemi: Such exciting technology. And your story about being an aerospace engineer and moving into MedTech gives me hope because my son is studying mechanical engineering, insists he wants to be an aerospace engineer. But keep hoping that maybe I’ll connect you folks on LinkedIn and you can lean on them a little bit at the top. I failed to mention your title. I was so flustered by our technical experiences. You’re the divisional vice president of product development for Abbott’s structural heart business. So you’ve overseen the development of the portfolio.
0:13:24 Tom Salemi: You and I, with Dr. Fred St. Goar, unpack the MitraClip a bit, talk a bit about the portfolio, maybe starting at Mitraclip, but then introduce us to some of Abbott’s other offerings in structural heart.
0:13:35 Santosh Prabhu: Yes. So the MitraClip is a transcatheter or catheter based means of treating mitral regurgitation. We have also taken this product into the tricuspid space and came up with TriClip. And TriClip was approved in the United States last year. And recently the center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, announced that the TriClip system is now covered under NCD or National Coverage Determination for tricuspid transcatheter edge-to-edge repair.
0:14:10 Santosh Prabhu: And this is a very important development as it expands the access to potentially life saving treatment with TriClip for about 1.6 million patients in the United States who suffer from tricuspid - moderate or severe - tricuspid regurgitation. So for many patients who are not candidates for open heart surgery, TriClip will offer a path to significantly improved quality of life and reduction in heart failure hospitalization.
0:14:38 Santosh Prabhu: So that’s on the MitraClip and TriClip site. So we are continuing to innovate. We are in the process of launching our our fifth generation MitraClip and TriClip product called MitraClip and TriClip G5. We are continuing to advance our vascular solutions. We are developing transcatheter products for transcatheter mitral valve replacement product named Cephea. We are also investing in transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement products.
0:15:09 Santosh Prabhu: We are continuing to advance our TAVI or transcatheter aortic valve implantation programs. We have Navitor with FlexNav, Navitor Vision with FlexNav and we’ll continue to evolve our Navitor and FlexNav product family. This is a self expanding valve product. TAVI product. We have also investing on a balloon expandable TAVI program that I know has some very differentiating features. We are continuing to invest in our structural interventions portfolio both for stroke risk reduction with products such as amylate left atrial appendage occluder and our Talisman PFO Occluder. We are also developing products for treating congenital heart diseases whether they are the atrial septal. Atrial septal defect occluders or ventricular septal defect occluders.
0:16:05 Santosh Prabhu: Our piccolo product for treating patent ductus arteriosus commonly found in prematurely born babies. We’ll continue to advance our surgical valve portfolio to the good old surgical valve products. Here a lot of our focus is on patient lifetime management. So patients who are getting surgical valve these days, in the future they might need a transcatheter valve, they might need a second valve which potentially could be a transcatheter valve. So we are designing the surgical valve, we are iterating on the surgical valve so that in the future it will be easy to implant a transcatheter valve.
0:16:44 Santosh Prabhu: So we are investing in development of our entire product portfolio across all these product franchises that I just talked about.
0:16:55 Tom Salemi: It’s fascinating to me. You have so many different products for one organ. How different are the landscapes of the heart? The different valves approaching mitral versus tricuspid? I mean they’re, they’re almost like you’re dealing with different parts of the body. Right? I mean they just present different challenges.
0:17:10 Santosh Prabhu: Yeah, they have. From a design standpoint. Well, the diseases are different. It’s all within the heart. But one is you’re looking at a right sided heart disease with tricuspid regurgitation. You’re looking at left sided heart disease with mitral regurgitation. The anatomies are very different. So the products definitely need to be very different. Even though you can leverage some of these technology that we are developed from one side into the other side.
0:17:41 Tom Salemi: We’ll take a quick break from this conversation to bring back our sponsor, Confluent Medical. I’m here with Tom Ditter. He is Senior Director of Product Development at Confluent Medical. Tom, Nitinol is growing in popularity. We’re seeing more and more OEMs returning to it. This alloy has shape memory, it has super elastic properties. Can you explain how Confluent sets itself apart from other nitinol suppliers?
0:18:05 Tom Ditter: Well, Confluent has over 30 years of experience in the design and processing of Nitinol. But beyond that expertise, Confluent identified a Nitinol supply chain gap. They invested over 100 million across the supply chain. Most recently they just made an investment over $50 million in additional melt and conversion capacity, becoming the fulfillment partner for one of the largest suppliers in the industry.
0:18:30 Tom Salemi: So Tom, we’re hearing so much about Nitinol’s super elastic and shape memory properties. It makes it an ideal alloy, specifically within the neurovascular space. Can you speak to how Confluent’s expertise is able to meet the growing demands for OEMs in the neurovascular market?
0:18:46 Tom Ditter: Yes. For neurovascular applications, durability is a major consideration and Confluent Medical has invested heavily in the development and processing of high purity alloys for increased durability and fatigue resistance. Armaterial SE508 Eli is one of the highest purity materials available and ideal for high cycle fatigue applications as found in neurovascular devices. Additionally, Confluent specializes in high precision polymer tubing such as Filmcast ptfe.
0:19:13 Tom Ditter: This makes us unique in the neurovascular space in that we can offer PTFE with thinner walls and larger diameters, making it ideal for large diameter aspiration catheters.
0:19:23 Tom Salemi: So Tom, that’s super interesting about the neurovascular space. So what does the future look like for Nitinol? And in the neurovascular device market the demand for minimally invasive procedures is growing.
0:19:30 Tom Ditter: So we can expect to see nitinol as a key alloy for these devices. Future applications such as neurovascular devices will need to have a smaller profile with an emphasis on durability. Additionally, high purity Nitinol is needed to address high fatigue applications to prevent fracture and improve longevity for patients.
0:19:49 Tom Salemi: Well, this has been really entertaining and insightful. Tom, thanks for joining us on the podcast.
0:19:54 Tom Ditter: Thank you Tom. Glad to be with you.
0:19:55 Tom Salemi: And thanks to Confluent Medical for sponsoring this episode. If you’d like to find out more about Confluent Medical, go to www.ConfluentMedical.com or interestingly enough, Nitinol.com. So what are some recent developments and we’ve covered a bit what you’re working on. But where are we moving forward with transcatheter mitral and tricuspid valve devices? What sort of development are we seeing there?
0:20:20 Santosh Prabhu: Yeah, you know, as I mentioned, we are continuing to advance our transcatheter product portfolio across all these diseases, treating all these different disease states. Some of these are would be continuous innovation going from the first generation mitrocliptin, now the fifth generation and then we are also looking at replacement solutions, not just repair for treating mitral and tricuspid regurgitation. We have products underway with Cephea, for example, which is a fully transfemoral transseptal mitral valve replacement product.
0:20:53 Santosh Prabhu: We are also looking at replacement solutions for the tricuspid, particularly in patients who cannot undergo repair. So replacements becomes a good viable option for them. On the TAVI side, as I said, we are continuing to advance our self expanding product portfolio with Navitor, with FlexNav, but we are also working on a balloon expandable TAVI program. It’s a software guided balloon expandable tabby valve which has certain differentiating feature the way we are designing it as in the future it’ll allow for the use of AI and ML algorithms for procedure planning and outcome prediction.
0:21:33 Santosh Prabhu: So that’s where the industry is heading. And then also on the left ventricular appendage occlusion side, we are continuing to develop our Amulet portfolio. We are continuing to develop our the steerable sheath that works along with the Amulet product. So you’re able to more precisely place the occluder, the Amulet device and also allow for other interventional procedures that can be done along with the amyloid procedure.
0:22:05 Kayleen Brown: There’s a lot of advancements that you just listed and a lot to unpack there. So I’m hearing that there’s going to be an incorporation of AI and ML to help predict outcomes or help improve outcomes. What about the materials themselves? Santosh would is there going to be a hybrid or a mix of biological and synthetic? More synthetic. What is the future of the materials?
0:22:29 Santosh Prabhu: Yeah, so the materials, of course some of these, the way these things have evolved is some of these technologies have come to fruition because of advancements in materials and manufacturing technologies. Right. Whether it is the use of materials such as nitinol which have now become very, very commonplace. Now we talk a lot about it, but they’ve been around for many years now. They’ve been used for stents, they’ve been used for valves.
0:22:55 Santosh Prabhu: Then we always talk about novel leaflet technologies. Right now most of these, the leaflets for example in valves are made out of, you know, porcine or bovine pericardial tissue. Now the synthetic materials that can be developed, that is one of the areas of very active research. You know, even some of the catheter based technologies, right. It’s not just the materials but the, some of these catheters require minuscule miniaturized components and some of these manufacturing technologies have also evolved such that allow us to make some of these, some of these components that go into our catheter based product. I can tell you with looking at products like MitraClip and TriClip, some of the components that are used in these devices, about 15 years ago those technologies to manufacture those components did not exist.
0:23:59 Santosh Prabhu: And of course then there are other polymer based technologies that are also evolving that potentially could find their way into the design of some of our medical devices.
0:24:10 Tom Salemi: I remember when we spoke at DeviceTalks West with Dr. St. Goar talking about as these technologies came into play, as with MedTech, there’s always this physician turf war, I’ll use my term, turf war between incumbents and newer physicians. Has the profile of your clinician customer changed over this time and is it continuing to change going forward? What do you see happening there?
0:24:40 Santosh Prabhu: Yes, we work very closely with a lot of our clinicians as we develop our products. And one thing I can tell you has not changed is that each of them wants to do the best for their patients, give them the best possible treatment options so they can live their life to the fullest. And they’re partnered with companies like Abbott and bringing some of the products to their products to their patients. Right now A lot of the clinicians have also adapted to our transcatheter based technologies as they’ve come to fruition over the last couple of decades.
0:25:24 Santosh Prabhu: So they have adapted, they have changed to use these, use these products, catheter based products because it allows them to treat patients that in the past didn’t have a treatment option. And moving forward also I’m very positive that they will be amenable and adapt to some of the newer technologies that will come to the forefront. Whether it is using artificial intelligence and procedure planning and outcome prediction so that it allows them to treat more patient patients, improves their workflow efficiency.
0:26:04 Santosh Prabhu: So I do think, you know, just as all of us need to change the way we do things. They will also willfully change and adapt to the new technologies that are, that will come to the market.
0:26:20 Kayleen Brown: What about the patients? So what would you say is the best way to reach patients and if you were able to speak to a patient directly, like what would you say to them?
0:26:30 Santosh Prabhu: Well, you know, for me it is always great to be able to talk to patients and hear how they are living their lives after receiving, receiving an Abbott device. You know, I want to tell them that would let you know. I always, in fact I do share with them that it’s meeting them and hearing them, seeing one of our devices, knowing that one of our Abbott products has been used in them, that motivates people like me and my entire engineering engineering team.
0:27:05 Santosh Prabhu: So as I said, it’s very, it’s very inspiring to talk to some of these patients and see how they are, how they are doing and how their life has been changed for the better. Not just their life, but even though even the life of their, of the dear ones or their families has improved because of this Abbott device. On a related thing, Abbott has created the HeartMates program to provide a community that offers support to people impacted by these various cardiovascular conditions and not just patients, but also the families, caregivers, friends and medical support teams.
0:27:43 Santosh Prabhu: This Abbott HeartMates program enables patients participants to share their stories, receive emotional support, form a common bond and Abbott even works with various HeartMate ambassadors including people like professional football players Damar Hamlin and three time super bowl winner Tedy Bruschi. And I have had a chance to talk to Tedy about his condition. It’s very inspiring both of them, both Damar and Tedy used their personal experiences battling through their heart condition to inspire other people.
0:28:24 Santosh Prabhu: So this Abbott HeartMates program celebrates the power of teamwork and bravery and those making their own heart related comeback and share their stories. People are welcome to join the Abbott HeartMates program. They’ll be known as HeartMates by going to www.Abbott.com/HeartMates and it’s easy to do.
0:28:48 Tom Salemi: I did sign up. I got my intro email yesterday so it’s a piece of cake.
0:28:53 Santosh Prabhu: And then usually these HeartMatea events can be in person or in a virtual setting.
0:29:00 Tom Salemi: How important is this direct outreach for MedTech more broadly? I feel as if the industry has operated backstage. I don’t want to see in the shadows backstage in all these great devices, go out front on stage and are seen. But no one knows where they come from and who they’re developing. How gratifying is it for you? I mean you’re not in it for the glory. You obviously have the mission, but to have your industry get recognition and engage directly with patients. How does that help?
0:29:27 Santosh Prabhu: Yeah.
0:29:28 Santosh Prabhu: In this case, you get to see the impact that your device has on the lives of people. Right. Because many of these HeartMates have had Abbott products or, you know, other cardiovascular products that have been used in them. And it has, of course, changed their life for the better. Right. They now live, it’s improved the quality of life. They live fuller, fuller lives, improve their interaction with their families. They get back, they get back to a much better quality of life than they had before when they were suffering from this particular, in this case, structural heart disease.
0:30:08 Santosh Prabhu: It also helps them to share their stories and motivate and inspire other people who are going through their similar. Going through similar journeys. Right. So it has a very strong societal impact too.
0:30:27 Kayleen Brown: Santosh. I feel as though it’s a responsibility or it’s our responsibility to raise awareness for this beautiful industry and try to get more talent into MedTech. What would you say to somebody who’s considering joining the industry?
0:30:41 Santosh Prabhu: Well, that’s a good question. You know, these days, when I, when I was going through school, there weren’t that many bioengineering programs. Now there are very well defined bioengineering programs. You know, I think I would encourage people who are interested in joining the industry to fully immerse themselves in the program, learn a lot. And also the other thing is get some practical experience too.
0:31:10 Santosh Prabhu: Of course, the college education is very important, but also is important to find a passion of what sort of disease state you want to target. Where do you want to go? Is it for oncology, is it for interventional cardiology, is it for cardiac surgery, is it for robotics? Find that passion and then also do some good internships, you know, as you go through college. So you get the, you know, you get more of the inkling of the practicality, you know, what are the skills, the practical skills that are definitely needed. And also I would say, if possible, you know, see some of the procedures being performed, you know, visit hospitals. Of course, you need to have an in there, you know, make those contacts so that you can actually go see, see some of the procedures, meet some of the doctors. You know, that gives you, you learn a lot from actually seeing some of these procedures, seeing how these devices are used, how these therapies are administered.
0:32:04 Santosh Prabhu: Then many times reading to the test book where you get a lot of the fundamentals, but the real world application is what you need to look for. Fantastic.
0:32:14 Tom Salemi: Well, Santosh Prabhu, Divisional Vice President of Product Development for Abbott. I’ve enjoyed every conversation we’ve had, both on our podcast, on stage, privately, and now today. Thanks so much for what you do and for joining us on AbbottTalks.
0:32:29 Santosh Prabhu: Thank you. Thank you so much.
0:32:31 Kayleen Brown: And that’s a wrap for this episode of AbbottTalks. From producer to co-host, I’ve made it full circle and that means I get to do the conclusion of this episode. So Tom and I sat down with Santosh Prabhu, Divisional Vice President of Product Development for Abbott’s structural heart business. We unpacked the structural heart portfolio, we talked about the patient journey, and we talked about what’s coming to Abbott’s structural heart business that’s going to help impact patients and the medical technology industry.
0:33:02 Kayleen Brown: We always love having Abbott on. So thank you so much, Abbott, for sharing your stories with us. We can’t do it without you. And speaking of those that we can’t do it without, thank you to this episode sponsor, Confluent Medical Technologies. Confluent Medical is a terrific partner DeviceTalks, and we’re so grateful for their continued support. If you want to learn more about how you can partner with Confluent Medical, please visit their website at www.ConfluentMedical.com that’s www.ConfluentMedical.com.
0:33:35 Kayleen Brown: Thank you, thank you, thank you. And to our audience, thank you so much for listening to another episode of AbbottTalks. I know that I already thanked Abbott and Santosh, but I want to give them a shout out as well. And thank you, Tom Salemi, our editorial director, for allowing to conclude this episode. It really is quite a treat. Make sure that you follow both Tom and myself on LinkedIn. I’m Kayleen Brown, managing editor for DeviceTalks. And of course, Tom is Tom Salemi.
0:34:01 Kayleen Brown: He is the editorial director for DeviceTalks. Connect with us and if you haven’t already, please subscribe to AbbottTalks and DeviceTalks on every major podcast player. And don’t forget to subscribe to the DeviceTalks podcast network on that you’re going to get access to every single podcast episode for every single podcast that we have. So if you don’t want miss a MedTech story, that’s where you go. Thank you so much for your continued support and we’ll see you next time.
