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The Memo: Vascudyne Engineering Regenerative Tissue for Cardiovascular Repair

Under the direction of CEO Zeeshan Syedain, PhD, Vascudyne is developing off-the-shelf, regenerative tissue implants designed to integrate with the patient’s body and remodel into living tissue. The St. Paul, Minnesota-based company is advancing engineered blood vessels and heart valves, with its lead clinical program focused on coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and additional work targeting congenital heart defects. Vascudyne’s approach centers on a human cell-derived biological matrix rather than synthetic material, with the goal of giving surgeons a readily available biological implant that can become populated by the patient’s own cells over time. Origin Story Vascudyne’s technology originated in Professor Robert Tranquillo’s lab at the University of Minnesota, where Dr. Syedain earned his PhD. As a co-inventor of the company’s core technology, his research centered on a fundamental question: could a bioengineered blood vessel or heart valve be grown in the lab and ultimately ...
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The Memo: Aurie Rethinking the Single-Use Model for Intermittent Catheters

Under the direction of Founder & CEO Souvik Paul, Aurie is developing a reusable intermittent catheter system designed to make advanced infection-reduction features more accessible to people who catheterize multiple times each day. The company’s FDA-cleared system pairs a reusable no-touch catheter with a portable washer-disinfector that automatically cleans, disinfects, and lubricates the catheter between uses. With its first commercial launch planned through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Aurie is building toward a broader vision: using reusability not only to reduce the cost and waste associated with intermittent catheterization, but also as a platform for technologies that could enable earlier detection and more individualized diagnosis of complicated urinary tract infections. Origin Story Aurie began with a problem Souvik encountered through his own family. 12 years ago, his sister-in-law, Carina, sustained a spinal cord injury in a car crash. She began relying on in...
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LSI Alumni Innovator Spotlight: Shoulder Innovations' Rob Ball

Shoulder arthroplasty is one of the fastest-growing segments in orthopedics, yet it continues to present unique clinical and operational challenges. Here, CEO Rob Ball discusses how Shoulder Innovations has grown from a clinical concept into a publicly traded company following its 2025 IPO, bringing together implant design, AI-enabled planning, procedural efficiency, specialized support, and emerging robotic technologies to help shape the future of shoulder surgical care.  Shoulder arthroplasty has become one of the highest-growth segments in orthopedics, driven by advances in implant technology, an aging population, and growing confidence in the complex procedure among both surgeons and patients. Yet important challenges remain, from achieving durable fixation and streamlining surgical workflow to supporting the continued migration of procedures into ambulatory surgery centers. Those challenges are exactly what Shoulder Innovations was created to address. Founded in 2009 to addre...
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LSI Alumni Innovator Spotlight: Apreo Health’s Karun Naga

Apreo Health is taking on one of respiratory medicine’s most persistent challenges with an approach built around a deceptively simple idea: instead of destroying diseased lung tissue, work with the lung to help it breathe. Under the leadership of Co-Founder and CEO Karun Naga, the company has advanced its investigational BREATHE Airway Scaffold from an early concept to a 200-patient pivotal trial, backed by a $130 million Series B and a team determined to establish a new treatment option for people living with severe emphysema. For Naga, however, Apreo is about more than building another medical device company. It is the culmination of decades of lessons about pioneering innovation, intellectual property, people, failure, persistence, and the responsibility that comes with trying to do something medicine has not been able to do before. From Patent Attorney to Entrepreneur Karun Naga has spent much of his career around people trying to create things that do not yet exist. An engineer b...
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The Memo: Tulyp Medical Brings Active Management to Limb Perfusion

Tulyp Medical is developing a pressure-guided limb-perfusion system designed to prevent procedure-associated acute limb ischemia by enabling clinicians to continuously monitor and regulate blood delivery to the affected limb. Initially focused on patients undergoing procedures involving femoral arterial access, including venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) and other forms of mechanical circulatory support, Tulyp is seeking to shift limb perfusion from a passive, reactive practice to an actively managed therapy. Origin Story Tulyp Medical began with a problem its founders, a group of clinicians and cardiovascular-device experts, repeatedly encountered in practice. Femoral access devices introduced through the femoral artery can compromise blood flow to the lower limb, yet clinicians may not recognize inadequate perfusion until injury has already begun. The founding premise was straightforward: rather than waiting for signs of a complication, clinicians should be ...
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The Memo: Noah Labs Listening for the Early Signs of Heart Failure Decompensation

Under the direction of Co-Founder and CEO Oliver Piepenstock, Noah Labs is developing a new approach to heart failure monitoring built around an unlikely source of clinical information: the human voice. The Boston- and Berlin-based company has developed Vox, an investigational AI-driven software medical device designed to detect vocal changes associated with worsening heart failure before hospitalization. Its deep learning models are trained on more than three million voice samples, while its commercially deployed Ark remote patient monitoring platform provides a foundation in clinical workflows and data. With Vox now advancing through a pivotal U.S. trial following FDA Breakthrough Device Designation, Noah Labs is working toward a larger vision Piepenstock describes as “the world’s first voice-powered operating system for heart failure care.” Origin Story Noah Labs began in Berlin in late 2021, when Piepenstock met Co-Founder and CTO Marcus Hott through Entrepreneur First. Their backg...
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The Memo: Moximed Building a New Treatment Paradigm for Knee Osteoarthritis

Under the direction of President and CEO Christopher Gleason, Moximed is advancing a joint-preserving approach to knee osteoarthritis with the MISHA Knee System, an implantable shock absorber designed to unload the medial compartment of the knee without replacing the joint. Built on nearly two decades of clinical development and more than a decade of technology refinement, MISHA is intended to address a substantial gap between conservative care and knee arthroplasty. Now commercially available in the U.S., Moximed is focused on scaling adoption, expanding its body of clinical evidence, and establishing joint unloading as a new treatment paradigm for patients who have exhausted non-surgical options but are unwilling to undergo or are not indicated for knee replacement. Origin Story Moximed was co-founded by Anton Clifford, PhD, and LSI Alumni Josh Makower, MD, around a straightforward biomechanical premise: reducing the forces acting across an osteoarthritic knee could address an import...
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