Cover Story Skin in the Game: Ramin Mousavi on CathWorks, Medtronic, and the Art of Building to Be Bought

CathWorks is redefining what a medtech partnership can be through a deliberate, globally minded build-to-buy model aimed at transforming how coronary artery disease is diagnosed and treated. Anchored by its “skin-in-the-game” partnership with Medtronic and its innovative wire-free and drug-free FFRangio System, the company has used markets across the United States, Europe, and Japan as real-world validation engines. The result is a model that combines scientific proof, speedy innovation, scalability, and partnership discipline that could impact how startups position themselves for acquisition.

When Ramin Mousavi, President and CEO of CathWorks, steps onto an LSI stage, he likes to mention that CathWorks was the very first company to present at the very first LSI Emerging Medtech Summit, in 2020. It’s an aside delivered with a smile, and is not so much nostalgic but rather a celebratory reflection backed up by 12+ years of startup peaks and valleys, and a game-changing build-to-buy deal with device industry giant Medtronic.

For Mousavi, success in medtech is not about flash or speed. It’s about playing the long game, building deliberately, and earning outcomes through persistence and precision. He has built his career around that philosophy.

After earning dual degrees in computer and electrical engineering at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), he completed an MBA at UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business and a Healthcare Executive Leadership certificate from Harvard Business School. (In September, Mousavi’s alma mater recognized him with the 2025 Lauds & Laurels Distinguished Alumnus Award, UCI’s highest alumni honor.) His early years in the device, tech, and aerospace industries at Edwards Lifesciences, Baxter International, Panasonic Avionics, and Rockwell Collins (now Collins Aerospace) gave him a unique blend of skills, including technical depth, operational discipline, and commercial awareness.

At Baxter, he led the patient monitoring and digital health portfolio through a series of acquisitions. At Edwards for nearly a decade, he honed his understanding of cardiovascular markets. Now at CathWorks, which he joined in 2019, Mousavi has fused his start-up and large strategic leadership experience within the medical device, aerospace, and tech industries to create a company that sits squarely at the intersection of innovation and scalability.

This blog is originally published here: https://www.lifesciencemarketresearch.com/insights/cover-story-skin-in-the-game-ramin-mousavi-on-cathworks-medtronic-and-the-art-of-building-to-be-bought

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