Interview with John Schindler, CEO at Liquet Medical and John Newby, CEO at Virginiabio By Caitlin Dolegowski, Marketing Manager, LSN
Caitlin Dolegowski (CD): Please introduce us to Liquet Medical and the company’s technology. How did Liquet Medical come to be?
John Schindler (JS): Liquet Medical is a development stage medical device company. Our first product to market is the Versus™ Catheter – a localized drug delivery catheter to treat blood clots in the lungs, a condition known as Pulmonary Embolism, or PE. This device has the ability to track the patient through real-time biometric data monitoring, allowing the physician to optimize the delivery of medication and the duration of the therapy. It will speed up time-to-treatment, lower hospital costs, and has the potential to reduce procedural complications and readmission rates.
The genesis of our company is rooted in a long-term business relationship with the inventor of the Versus Catheter, Dr. Patrick Kelly. Dr. Kelly is a serial inventor and practicing Vascular surgeon in Sioux Falls, SD who has routinely treated patients suffering from PE and decided there was a better way. I have worked closely with Dr. Kelly on several projects over the course of a 30+ year career in the medical device industry. This one being very personal to me in that my own mother passed from a Pulmonary Embolism shortly after the birth of my sister. As you can imagine, this has had a profound impact on my career and is what drives my passion to bring this particular innovation to the market.
CD: John, please introduce us to Virginia Bio. Virgnia had four companies participate in the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge at RESI South, what technology in the life sciences are you excited about coming from Virginia?
John Newby (JN): Virginia Bio is our Commonwealth’s life sciences trade group, representing and supporting a diverse group of med tech, diagnostic, pharmaceutical, digital health and other companies. We partner with regional and national coalitions to bring capital and impactful partnerships to our biotechs to grow Virginia’s $8.4 billion life sciences industry. In addition to exciting technologies like Liquet’s medical device, we are also particularly excited about our growing advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing capability that is a national leader in the onshoring of essential medicine production.
CD: John Schindler, this was your first RESI conference. I’d like to ask both of you about your experience at RESI? What was effective for you at RESI South?
JS: What I enjoyed most was how intimate this meeting felt despite the large number of attendees. The poster session gave attending companies a great opportunity for investors, fellow entrepreneurs, and ecosystem partners to understand and spend time together in an easy informal way. The pitch sessions were also a nice opportunity to share our innovation and coupled with a QA session led by panelists to help guide the conversation, provided opportunities for us to expand the audience understanding of the innovation. Also, providing opportunities for us to engage with investors in the partnering platform and also over breakfast, lunch and during the evening reception was outstanding. I managed to connect with many of the investors I was interested in meeting, and we’ve been able to follow up with them since. And lastly, I took a lot of notes listening to the curated panels and found the Seed Fund and VC panels particularly interesting. You all did a great job of attracting a lot of high-quality panelists for us to learn from.
JN: This was the first time that a coalition of seven southeastern states partnered to bring this well known investor conference to our region. RESI South brought over 200 investors into contact with a nearly equal number of life sciences companies, allowing scores of new connections and (ultimately, we hope) investments. The pitch competition that John competed in allowed our Virginia companies to both showcase their technologies and gain broader view into the work being done across our region. Our coalition’s goal in bringing RESI to Atlanta was to showcase all of our companies and increase investor visibility of our region. To this end, RESI South was more than effective.
CD: John Schinder, what stage of fundraising is Liquet Medical in and what milestone are you working toward currently?
JS: We are in the midst of closing our Seed round prior to a Series A offering early next year. And the major milestones ahead of us are our submission for our FDA 510(k) in the next few months and our expected FDA clearance later this year. We have an open convertible note and if any of your readers are investors interested in joining this round, let’s find some time to connect and discuss.
CD: Congratulations on your third-place finish at RESI JPM’s Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC)! What do you think was the key to your success and standing out at RESI JPM?
JS: Thank you! It was great fun to share our innovation. I think the big key to our pitch success was having the opportunity to spend time with the meeting attendees around our poster before the pitch presentation. It made it easy to get them excited about what we are working on. I would encourage future companies to invest in the quality of their content. It’s a great tool and opportunity and I think what made the RESI meeting so interactive and successful for us. So, I’d give the credit to RESI for providing the additional visibility that ultimately contributed to our success.
CD: Another question for both of you. What advice would you like to give to entrepreneurs about RESI conferences?
JS: My advice would be not to fret about the 4-min time allotment for your pitch presentation – it’s plenty of time to share your innovation and ample available time in the QA to clarify your story further. Also, there is plenty of time to meet investors during the poster sessions, over lunch, and during the reception.
JN: An entrepreneur’s time an energy is very limited, and not every investor conference is likely to yield the results sought in terms of investor contact. RESI South was a unique opportunity for our entrepreneurs to attend an event that aimed for and achieved a nearly 1:1 ratio of investors to companies, and offered numerous opportunities to either pitch or present their technologies to those same investors. We understand that RESI conferences, generally have the same aims as RESI South in terms of opportunities for happy “collisions” with investors. Accordingly, for entrepreneurs looking to maximize their available time, RESI conferences may be a great choice.
If you’re interested in the next upcoming Innovator’s Pitch Challenge, you can apply for the RESI Europe 2024 IPC taking place June 17-19 with a 1-day in-person conference follow by 2-day virtual partnering at Hilton Diagonal Mar Barcelona in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, so get your application submitted today!
RESI Europe registration opens at super early bird rates. Register now to save $500 by Tomorrow, Friday, April 12.
Next Phase Newsletter 