Boston Scientific CEO Mahoney: Speed wins

Speed is more important than scale when it comes to competing in the medical device market, Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX) president & CEO Mike Mahoney said last night at MassDevice.com‘s DeviceTalks Boston event.

“I think we can be the fastest-moving company in medical devices,” Mahoney said at the DeviceTalks event, hosted on Boston Scientific’s new campus in Marlborough, Mass. “We use that winning spirit to see opportunities, and have courage to make decisions and move faster as a company. I think speed wins, not size wins. And I think we’re starting to generate that momentum.”

When he arrived at Boston Scientific in 2012, he said, the company hadn’t grown in 4 years. Mahoney said his plan to restore the company to growth focused on investing in what he called “the culture, the people and the pipeline.”

That focus has helped turn the company around, reporting strong single-digit growth during his years with the medical device giant.

The boost in speed was helped by a culture that emphasizes a “winning spirit,” Mahoney said, noting that it was important to give the employees a culture in which they could flourish and a company they could be proud to work for.

“A lot of what we did to turn around the company, the portfolio things – most of it was the culture of the company. How do we hire great leaders, how do we enable greater speed, faster decision-making, more empowerment, more pride in the company?” he explained.

Rather than acquiring just to add scale, Mahoney said, Boston Scientific uses M&A to maintain category leadership, citing the $1.65 billion acquisition of American Medical Systems’ urology business.

“We always look for the strategic fit 1st. Bringing this on, will it bring synergies on the revenue side or is it in a category to help our other products?” he said.

Mahoney was joined by Tal Medical CEO Jan Skvarka and Rotation Medical CEO Martha Shadan, who spoke on their experience in early development, the difficulties of finding funding and dealing with Medicare and payer issues.

Stay tuned for news on more upcoming Device Talks events, including podcasts of our chat with Mahoney, Skvarka and Shadan.

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