A Tale of Two JPMs

I  “attended” the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference this year, but like most people who descend on San Francisco every January, I didn’t have access to the conference itself. Instead, I spent the week meeting with investors and operators who were in town, the parallel JPM that happens in hotel lobbies, side rooms, and rushed coffee chats between meetings.

Still, I was curious about what it sounded like inside. And I figured my Field Notes readers might be too. So I read* 34 public medtech company presentation decks and transcripts from JPM so you wouldn’t have to.

*I personally read each transcript. Insights and interpretations are mine, based on publicly available Seeking Alpha transcripts from company presentations at the 44th JPMorgan Healthcare Conference (January 2026). Notes edited for clarity and consistency by ChatGPT.

Before we get into the substance

Quotable Moments (…some taken out of context)

• “The journey to a public company is a long and arduous one and I’m happy that now the conversations we have with investors are thematic - they're not trying to go 8 levels deep into the due diligence that we experienced during the VC stages.” — Kestra (must be nice)
• “So The Golden Bachelorette had two people to choose from…” — Inspire
• As a CEO, I don't like secret decoder rings.” — Baxter

Word of the Day Across the transcripts, the word of the day wasn’t AI, it was tuck-ins, mentioned 34 times. A tuck-in is a small, strategically adjacent acquisition, typically of a product near commercialization / scale, designed to slot cleanly into an existing platform, unlike larger acquisitions that aim to create a new category or materially reshape the buyer’s business. The signal is clear: strategics are less interested in buying ideas and far more interested in buying things that already work and fit cleanly into something they sell every day.

A Tale of Two JPMs

Inside the Conference

Public companies are speaking to the public markets. They’re laying out priorities, setting expectations, and signaling confidence about the year ahead. Reading the transcripts back to back, I started to see recurring themes in how these teams talk about platforms, focus, execution, and so on:

Innovation is being defined less by technical novelty and more by proof and adoption.

• At Edwards Lifesciences, progress is tied to trial design and payer confidence as much as device performance.
• AngioDynamics spent as much time on clinical strategy and reimbursement readiness as on new products.
• Medtronic was explicit that the next phase of growth depends on reducing adoption friction through workflow, pricing, and training.

Platforms are being defined around ownership of a procedure workflow or disease state from diagnosis and detection to treatment and post-op.

• Alcon talks about Unity as diagnostics to planning to surgery.
• Boston Scientific frames its strategy around ecosystems, cadence, and adjacencies that reinforce how a procedure gets done every day.
• Intuitive Surgical continues to position its Ion platform around compressing disease timelines.

There’s also some intel in what these companies signal about where they might invest, partner, or acquire next, included in my notes below.

Outside the Conference

The conversations outside the conference are completely different. Those were about what it actually feels like to build and innovate right now. Here’s what I learned during Jonathan Norris’s review of HSBC Innovation Banking’s 2025 Healthcare Venture at Lifeblood / Goodwin’s CEO-Only Forum:

• Early-stage first financings stable (<$2M), in line with the past six years
• Cardiovascular and neurology continue to dominate venture-backed exits
• Fundraising friction driven by investor stratification and fewer active early-stage check writers
• Investor behavior shifted toward higher-conviction deployment. Insider-led rounds persisted, but companies with strong data and clear commercialization paths increasingly attracted new investors at step-ups.
• Corporate participation in early-stage investment declined in 2025
• Median upfront across 10 exits: ~$525M
• 2026 outlook: stable early-stage volume, larger syndicates, continued strength in both traditional and AI-enabled devices

Takeaways for startups

• Expect a valley of death between FDA and commercial scale. Capital exists, but it is concentrated later and later. Many companies can get to clearance, but few can fund the bridge to meaningful revenue. This is where timelines can stretch, insider rounds may come into play, and fundraising feels hardest.
• Financing is about fit as much as quality. Fewer firms do frequent early deals, and there is higher expectation of follow-on support. Companies with strong data and clear commercialization pathways still attract new investors, but the bar is higher, and strong syndicates that can continue to support companies are crucial.
• Tuck-ins are the most realistic M&A outcome. Strategics are signaling clear preference for small, adjacent acquisitions that plug into existing platforms. That means startups are more likely to be acquired for commercial traction, workflow fit, or an enabling capability.

2025 JPM Medtech Presentations Snapshot

Below are my notes on what was being discussed inside the conference, pulled directly from JPM presentations and transcripts, with startup-relevant takeaways on how the largest medtech companies are thinking about platforms, focus, execution, and where they may invest or acquire next.

Alcon (ALC)

• “We are certainly prepared as we go into these next couple of years to launch probably 10 to 15 new products”
• Emphasizing a high launch cadence across cataract, retina, glaucoma, dry eye, suggesting sustained appetite for adjacent tech that plugs into OR + clinic workflow.
• Pushing Unity (cataract surgery platform) as an integrated workflow (diagnostics → planning → surgery) that increases surgeon productivity and standardizes outcomes. Piloting later this year.

Startup angle: If you’re building OR integration, imaging, planning software, or AI-assisted measurement in the vision space, Alcon is signaling they value end-to-end workflow gains (time saved per case) as much as device specs.

AngioDynamics (ANGO)

• Portfolio re-centered on a few growth platforms: Auryon (PAD), AlphaVac (thrombectomy/PE), AngioVac (right heart), NanoKnife (prostate) with explicit focus on expanding indications and market adoption.
• “We've got a really strong pipeline. So each of these platform products will spin off over the next 5 years. It doesn't require us to look to M&A or other areas to try to find new ideas.”
• A lot of their innovation / expansion is actually clinical trial strategy + reimbursement readiness (how you win adoption in PE, PAD, BPH).

Startup angle: Seem very focused on internal R&D and reiterated a couple of times that acquisitions in the next couple of years are unlikely. Any portfolio shifts might be divestitures for focus.

AtriCure (ATRC)

• Extending into post-op AF and broader indications
• Also expanding into post-op pain management via cryo nerve block. “A recent study we did on thoracotomy showed that you can save between $8,000 and $15,000 in the after recovery, where those patients aren't going back into urgent care, going back and calling in and taking additional drugs...”
• Signaling new platform in PFA (trial/IDE) - dual energy platform with RF / PFA

Startup angle: Startups in EP mapping, peri-procedural workflow, ablation adjuncts, OR efficiency, or post-op monitoring map well.

Baxter (BAX)

• A big theme is “Baxter Operating System / GPS” (process + quality + cycle time), positioned as the engine that frees up bandwidth for product execution.
• Framing differentiation around connected solutions and making care easier for constrained hospital labor.

Startup angle: If you sell into Baxter-adjacent spaces (infusion/renal/ICU), expect them to care deeply about reliability, serviceability, and integration.

Boston Scientific (BSX)

• Boston Scientific repeatedly emphasizes cadence itself as a competitive advantage: multiple major launches per year across EP, cardiology, urology, and endoscopy. This is framed as intentional operating model design, not just R&D productivity.
• EP strategy is ecosystem-first. FARAWAVE is treated as the anchor, but equal strategic weight is placed on access (Baylis), mapping, adjunct catheters (FARAPOINT), and future participation in ICE (intracardiac echo). The objective is procedure ownership.
• ASC migration is framed as a tailwind. PFA’s safety and predictability are positioned as enabling site-of-care expansion rather than threatening hospital economics.
• WATCHMAN flywheel continues to compound. Concomitant procedures, bundling, and shared clinical teams reinforce a moat that is procedural, economic, and organizational.
• Brief mention of investing in interventional oncology via Therasphere (radioactive seeds, from BTG acquisition) and intravascular lithotripsy (SEISMIQ)
• Venture + M&A is a designed pipeline. “I say confidently that we have the strongest venture portfolio in med tech that we've been working on for many, many years. And you've seen the history, we traditionally buy 25% of our M&A…from our venture portfolio.”

Startup angle: Boston Scientific backs technologies that help them own the procedure, not just add a feature. If your product drives case growth, expands site of care, or slots cleanly into an existing ecosystem they already sell every day, they can scale it fast. Ventures seems to feed into BD / M&A quite well - not always the case for large medtech companies.

Butterfly Network (BFLY)

• Moving from point-of-care ultrasound device company to software + AI + app ecosystem (including enabling third‑party apps on top of their stack: “27 companies today that are developing AI tools that will link into our software development kit”)
• Edge-compute for AI + workflow integration: partnering on on-device intelligence beyond image capture. “Our chips can be used for patient monitoring, pharmaceutical applications, bone healing, endoluminal applications, HIFU catheter-based IVIS, robotics, neuromodulation, and tomography.”

Startup angle: This is a rare “medtech-as-a-platform” posture, interesting for startups building imaging AI apps, specialty workflows, or billing/documentation automation. Could also be interesting for those looking to leverage their chips for access beyond image-capture - although this language is likely targeted at more clinically derisked technologies.

CeriBell (CBLL)

• Make EEG a vital sign: Reframing EEG from specialist tool → routine bedside monitoring with rapid setup + algorithmic interpretation.
• Extending into delirium detection and peds/neonates - indication expansion via software:

Startup angle: CeriBell highlights how much of adoption comes down to fitting into everyday clinical practice. When a tool is straightforward enough to be used routinely at the bedside, it creates flexibility over time in how and where it gets applied.

CONMED (CNMD)

• Defend-and-extend core platforms: Clear emphasis on doubling down on AirSeal (insufflation) and smoke evacuation as must-have OR infrastructure.
• Continued focus on BioBrace and sports med adjacencies that benefit from distribution + surgeon familiarity.

Startup angle: CONMED is a reminder that some of the most durable businesses in medtech live underneath the procedure. If your product improves safety, visibility, or efficiency in the OR without changing surgeon behavior, you’re speaking their language.

Dexcom (DXCM)

• Strong push into OTC / broader population continuous glucose monitoring and making the experience “normal-person friendly.”
• Ongoing evolution in apps, insights, partnerships, and product cadence (more time-in-wear, smaller form factors, supply scaling).

Startup angle: If you’re building behavior change, metabolic coaching, cardiometabolic risk stratification, or provider workflow around CGM data, Dexcom’s direction supports that wedge.

Edwards Lifesciences (EW)

• Structural heart is still underbuilt in their view. Growth is framed as creating new patients, not competing for share inside existing cohorts.
• Earlier treatment is the real unlock. Expansion into asymptomatic and moderate disease is treated as inevitable, but explicitly gated by guidelines, reimbursement, and long-term durability data, not by device performance.
• Mitral and tricuspid are deliberate portfolio experiments. Edwards is intentionally running repair and replacement strategies in parallel.
• Evidence sequencing is core product strategy. Trial design, endpoint selection, durability follow-up, and payer confidence are treated as innovation assets.
• External innovation remains tightly scoped to structural heart adjacencies; Edwards is not signaling diversification.

Startup angle: Edwards backs companies that deepen their core by expanding who gets treated, strengthening evidence, or supporting long-term durability.

Establishment Labs (ESTA)

• Positioning new product Preservé as a minimally invasive platform (not just “another implant”), leaning into procedural simplicity + outcomes.
• Innovation story is partly indication expansion (reconstruction) and surgeon training scale - new indications + geographies

Startup angle: Interesting case study in building a “platform” in a mature category: win via procedure redesign + outcomes narrative + surgeon enablement.

Fresenius Medical Care (FMS)

• Beyond dialysis centers: Signaling continued push toward home modalities + integrated kidney care (care coordination, outcomes, risk models).
• Machine/platform upgrades: Emphasis on next-gen systems and digital connectivity to improve clinical and operational outcomes.

Startup angle: Fresenius is building kidney care as a connected system that blends devices, services, and risk-bearing models. Startups are most relevant to them when they strengthen that system, rather than selling standalone hardware.

GE HealthCare (GEHC)

• GE HealthCare is positioning itself as a facilitator across disease states, not just an owner of individual devices. They’re interested in tools that sit to the right or left of imaging (diagnostics, therapies, data flow) where combining assets creates more than incremental value.
• D3 strategy (Devices + Digital + Drugs). GE frames itself as the orchestrator across imaging hardware, AI deployment, and radiopharma diagnostics/theranostics.
• AI strategy is shifting from features to infrastructure. GE is explicit that today’s AI value is embedded in hardware differentiation, but the long-term opportunity is orchestrating AI at the enterprise level (Intelerad acquisition).
• “When you look at top FDA list of AI authorizations, we lead really all of med tech with 115 authorizations.”
• Radiopharma and theranostics are strategic growth areas. Imaging, diagnostics, and therapy planning are bundled into a single continuum.

Startup angle: GE becomes relevant when your technology helps connect a disease pathway or amplifies what their installed base already touches, rather than trying to stand alone as “just another device”.

Haemonetics (HAE)

• Continues to build around blood management, plasma/collection, closure: tools that reduce complications and time.
• ViVASURE acquisition signals Haemonetics’ intent to extend its closure platform beyond small-bore access into large-bore arterial closure, aligning with growth in structural heart and complex endovascular procedures.

Startup angle: Unflashy but huge category: if you can show you reduce bleeding, complications, or length of stay, they will pay attention.

Henry Schein (HSIC)

• Dental/healthcare workflow digitization: A lot of innovation is software + practice workflow in dentistry and adjacent markets. Startup angle: If you sell into dental, the scale path often runs through channel partners; design your product for channel fit early.

Inspire Medical Systems (INSP)

• Innovation is about making therapy easier to adopt and manage (device iteration + remote management + patient experience).
• Indication/eligibility expansion: Strategy includes systematically unlocking more eligible patients over time.

Startup angle: Inspire is a roadmap to how implantable categories grow once the device works. The bottlenecks shift to patient identification, referral flow, and long-term management. Startups that help unlock and support those pathways are going to do better than those focused only on the implant itself.

Insulet (PODD)

• Automated insulin delivery platform compounding: Innovation is continuous improvement of closed-loop experience, integrations, and patient usability (not one big launch).
• Eventually looking at bringing this fully closed loop system to Type 1 diabetes.
• Brand loyalty as a moat: “#1 most requested and most prescribed AID in the United States…70% of people with diabetes who request a brand ask for Omnipod.”
• Data platform strength: Strong emphasis on software/data to improve outcomes and retention.

Startup angle: Insulet shows what happens when brand pull becomes a real moat in medtech.

Intuitive Surgical (ISRG)

• Clear multi-year digital roadmap. Data capture → case insights → intraoperative guidance → augmented dexterity → future autonomy. “Today, we're receiving over 1,000 cases a day of data that we're able to add to this foundation and enable our data scientists to mine that data and look for meaningful insights “
• AI is embedded, already operational in Ion (segmentation, CT-to-body divergence reduction), and positioned as foundational to safety and dexterity augmentation.
• Intuitive is orienting its lung strategy around the disease state itself, with Ion positioned as an enabler across the lung cancer pathway. The ambition is compressing lung cancer timelines from detection → diagnosis → staging → treatment “And so we're making investments in ROS technology…in endobronchial ultrasound EBUS to integrate that into the Ion system and again, make it easier and more efficient for physicians to biopsy lymph nodes and stage them…We continue on the treatment side to make investments in focal therapy as do many companies outside the 4 walls of Intuitive. And so we're excited when we look at what is possible for lung cancer, how we can change a 200-day pathway, compress that to less than a month.”
• Software is fully productized. Simulation, telepresence, analytics, and future telesurgery are treated as core platform layers.

Startup angle:

Intuitive values technologies that increase utilization, compress care pathways, or reduce procedural risk at scale. If your product makes a robot more useful per day, you’ll have their attention.

iRhythm (IRTC)

• Leaning into interpretation and workflow, not just monitoring. “We're starting to leverage the 3 billion hours of heartbeat data…we're starting to become much more predictive in identifying where these arrhythmias exist, particularly in comorbid disease states, but also finding other health factors that are very interesting to our payers and our partners, getting the place where we can predict the onset of AFib.”
• Directionally pushing toward broader ordering base (including primary care and scaled channels) without breaking quality. Also launching pilots in sleep. “Nearly 80% of all folks who have AFib have obstructive sleep apnea or sleep apnea.”

Startup angle: iRhythm is a case study in how remote monitoring matures once scale is achieved. The advantage shifts toward making data usable for clinicians and relevant for payers, and widening access without losing trust.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)

• MedTech focus has been deliberately narrowed, separation of orthopedics frees capital and leadership bandwidth for cardiovascular, surgery, and vision.
• Surgery is being rebuilt around robotics. OTTAVA is framed as foundational infrastructure for the next decade of general surgery. MONARCH extends JNJ’s robotics posture into urology and procedural adjacencies.
• Robotics timelines are explicit and patient. Management openly frames robotics as material to growth post-2027, signaling long-cycle conviction.
• EP/ablation is in a reset year. VARIPULSE and next-gen catheters are positioned as stabilizing the franchise and enabling renewed growth.
• Shockwave is the strategic template. Acquire a category-defining platform early, then expand indications, geography, and standard of care aggressively.
• JNJ prefers leveraging its development, manufacturing, and global scale rather than competing in late-stage auctions.

Startup angle: JNJ thinks in franchises, not SKUs. If you can show a credible wedge into cardio, surgical robotics ecosystems, or vision, plus a believable path to global scale, they’ll engage. Despite the headlines around large acquisitions, management states its sweet spot remains early-stage deals where it can apply its development, manufacturing, and commercial scale.

Kestra Medical Technologies (KMTS)

• Wearable defibrillator: Innovation emphasis is patient usability + monitoring + false alarm reduction and clinical workflow integration.
• Data + expanded indications for remote monitoring partnerships (BioBeat): positioning as a connected therapeutic monitoring system.

Startup angle: Wearables that win in acute-risk populations do it through workflow + reimbursement + clinical proof.

LivaNova (LIVN)

• Focus / expansion in neuromodulation: Core epilepsy franchise + deliberate expansion into sleep apnea / neuro adjacencies.
• Expansion into OSA is an adjacency that leverages their existing neuromodulation infrastructure and chronic therapy playbook, while depression remains a longer-term option they are watching carefully, but not jumping into.

Startup angle: Serves as a reminder that neuromodulation companies don’t win on hardware or indications alone anymore. The real leverage sits in patient selection, therapy tuning, and long-term management, all of which happen after implant.

Medline (MDLN)

• Opportunistic growth as strategy: frames growth as a mix of acquisitions, private-label expansion, and scale advantages, using its balance sheet and distribution reach to absorb categories where it can improve availability, reliability, or cost structure.
• New adjacencies are entered not because they are innovative, but because Medline can operationalize them better than smaller players once they reach sufficient demand and standardization.

Startup angle:  Medline isn’t looking to invent new categories. They’re looking to buy or absorb what’s already working and scale it efficiently

Medtronic (MDT)

• “Generational growth drivers” are now compounding. PFA, renal denervation, neuromodulation, and robotics are framed as moving from investment to acceleration.
• PFA strategy is explicitly segmented. Different tools, price points, and workflows for different customer types; deep penetration of high-volume AF centers is the priority.
• Renal denervation is going to take market creation / development from MDT. Adoption friction is reimbursement, workflow, and economics.
• Neuromod expansion (Altaviva) is built for scale. Simplified implantation, long battery life, rapid physician training.
• Hugo robotics competes on modularity and openness. “We're the only company to offer solutions across all surgical modalities, open, laparoscopic and now robotic-assisted...enables customers to get back to their comfort zone, contracting with a true partner for their diverse surgical needs.”
• Governance has been rebuilt for M&A speed. Explicit appetite for low- to mid single-digit-B tuck-ins near commercialization.

Startup angle: Medtronic is actively shopping for technologies that accelerate existing procedure engines. If you reduce adoption friction, expand indications, or make their growth drivers easier to sell, you’re relevant.

Merit Medical (MMSI)

• Framing future innovation around therapeutic platforms (cardiac, renal, interventional, endoscopy).
• M&A as a feature: They present acquisitions as a core part of the growth/innovation engine (supplementing internal development).

Startup angle: Merit is a reminder that “mid-cap strategics” can be serious acquirers, especially for enabling/adjacent technologies with commercial traction.

NeuroPace (NPCE)

• AI + neuromodulation: Strong direction toward combining RNS therapy with smarter analytics, remote management, and broader applicability.
• “No other organization that has the data set that we have…more than 24 million individualized EEGs. What that allows us to do is enable real-time therapy for these patients and longer term…build AI algorithms that can look at that database and then tailor and recommend therapy protocols for individual patient.”
• “We've developed [strategic relationships] with pharma and biotech companies where we can use the diagnostic and monitoring capability to record data for patients that are in trials…andwe can monitor the biomarker responses to the administration of these compounds “

Startup angle: Neuro is ripe for device + data businesses where therapy and monitoring reinforce each other.

Olympus (OLYMY)

• Endoscopy is framed as a single ecosystem. Imaging, therapeutic devices, AI, and robotics are treated as one adaptive system.
• AI (OLYSENSE) is workflow infrastructure. Detection, training, and standardization.
• Endoluminal robotics pursued via partnership/JV. Willingness to collaborate rather than insist on internal builds.

Startup angle: Olympus starts with a clear organic path to leadership and uses tuck-in acquisitions, partnerships, or JVs when those paths need acceleration. If your technology can be scaled through their existing channel and clearly shifts their market growth, collaboration is realistic. If it requires a new sales motion or channel build, expect resistance.

Outset Medical (OM)

• Evolution toward a cloud + data + AI-supported service layer around Tablo (predict/prevent maintenance, analytics, workflow integration).
• Site-of-care expansion: Continued push across acute/post-acute and home, with training/time-to-independence positioned as key differentiator.

Startup angle: Home + acute hybrid strategies win when you solve training + uptime + workflow + reimbursement together.

Penumbra (PEN)

• Now part of Boston Scientific’s platform expansion play (pending close). Boston Scientific announced a definitive agreement to acquire Penumbra in a cash-and-stock deal valuing Penumbra at about $14.5B enterprise value.
• Culture of rapid iteration in thrombectomy and related vascular interventions.
• Ongoing investment in trials that expand use cases and drive adoption.

Startup angle: A JPM reminder that fit matters more than buzz. Once a platform buyer decides a category is strategic, expectations change fast for everyone else in that space.

ResMed (RMD)

• ResMed focuses on linking devices, software, and data to support ongoing sleep and respiratory care and make day-to-day management easier for providers.
• Rather than large shifts, they add functionality over time through product development and selective acquisitions.

Startup angle:  ResMed is most relevant to sleep apnea startups that help patients start therapy, stay on therapy, or make provider workflows easier to manage.

Siemens Healthineers (SEMHF)

• Siemens consistently talks about “physical AI,” meaning intelligence that is embedded directly into imaging hardware to improve dose, speed, and image quality, rather than layered on afterward as software.
• Hardware leadership (Photon-counting CT and total-body PET) positioned as care-model changers.
• Enterprise partnerships are the moat. Multi-year, system-wide agreements outweigh individual product wins.

Startup angle: Siemens is a reminder that in imaging, success is less about having the best technology and more about where it lives. If your product can’t deploy cleanly across an enterprise and measurably improve throughput, quality, or dose at scale, it won’t matter how impressive it looks in isolation.

TransMedics (TMDX)

• Not just Organ Care Systems hardware, also logistics, coordination, and execution quality across the transplant chain.
• Broadening to kidney and other organs, geographies, and throughput.

Startup angle: A masterclass in vertical integration as a moat, if your category depends on reliability and timing, owning the workflow can beat owning the widget.

Terumo (TRUMY)

• Broad-based innovation across vascular/neurovascular access and intervention + drug delivery. Emphasis on novel imaging/therapy tools and device platforms that ride long-term trends.
• M&A appetite: They highlight meaningful acquisitions (like OrganOx) as strategic accelerants.

Startup angle: Terumo tends to buy/partner where there’s platform adjacency + global scale potential

Zimmer Biomet (ZBH)

• Robotics as a platform for procedure standardization and efficiency.
• Innovation framed as improving outcomes and reducing revisions/complications (with specific tech angles in implants and intraop tools).

Startup angle: If you’re in ortho, the value prop that resonates is measurable OR efficiency + fewer complications + better alignment/outcomes, ideally as part of a robotic/digital workflow.

‍