LifeSci Continuum with Bill Schick

Bill Schick FCMO
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Life Sciences
  • Updated Semiweekly

I'm a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer for life science companies and I help them accelerate product adoption & make marketing work.This is LifeSci Continuum, where we explore the unbroken sequence of innovation, strategy, & growth in the life sciences industry. Join us as we explore the insights and experiences of founders, product managers, commercialization leaders, & marketing pros in the field. Discover the strategies & tactics that have worked for them, hear about their challenges and triumphs, and gain valuable knowledge to help your company thrive.From commercialization to full life cycle product management and marketing, learn about the latest trends in pharmaceutical, biotech, med device and healthcare marketing, product management, and branding.From groundbreaking startups to exit-stage brands, we uncover the secrets to success in the life sciences, reflecting the ongoing evolution that defines our industry.As a fractional CMO in the life sciences, I can help you establish, track, and optimize the right metrics and KPIs that align with your business objectives. This includes defining what success looks like for your specific stage of growth, whether it's early lead generation, nurturing prospects, or moving toward commercialization. I'll ensure that your marketing efforts are measured using data-driven insights, helping to identify opportunities, optimize campaigns, and make informed decisions to accelerate growth and ROI while minimizing wasteful efforts. For more specialized help with growth, check out my firm, Mesh.https://meshagency.com/ 

  1. The MedTech Commercialization Mistake Teams Keep Making | Ayse Unsalan

    Apr 14

    The MedTech Commercialization Mistake Teams Keep Making | Ayse Unsalan

    If your commercialization team shows up after the big decisions are already locked, don’t act shocked when the product struggles in the market. Talk to Bill. - Bill Schick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/founderandcdo/ In this episode of LifeSci Continuum, I sit down with Ayse Unsalan, global medtech commercialization and product strategy leader, to talk about why strong products still stall in the market. We dig into the hidden cost of silos, why commercialization teams too often inherit decisions they did not shape, and why clinical value alone is not enough to drive market adoption. Connect with Ayse Unsalan to continue the conversation on medtech commercialization, product lifecycle strategy, and market adoption. - Ayse Unsalan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayse-unsalan-ab11a743/ 00:00 Why great medtech products still fail in the market 01:10 Ayse Unsalan’s background in medical device commercialization 02:58 Why successful teams focus on the problem, not the product 04:48 How silos break product launches in medtech organizations 07:47 Why cross-functional teams must align early 12:11 Why commercialization must be involved from day one 16:08 The danger of falling in love with your product 18:56 How bad assumptions kill pricing and market success 21:33 Clinical value vs market adoption explained 25:06 Why great products fail without financial and operational value 30:23 A real failure story from trying to build the “perfect product” 33:36 Why startups fail without commercial strategy 37:56 The biggest mistakes teams make too late in development 41:11 Feature-focused vs value-driven product strategy 45:46 What “relevance” really means in medtech Too many medtech teams assume that if the product is clinically strong, the market will figure itself out. Cute theory. Often dead wrong. In this episode, I talk with Ayse Unsalan about the commercialization failures that happen long before launch. Drawing on nearly two decades in medical device marketing, portfolio strategy, and product lifecycle leadership, Ayse explains why successful products are usually backed by successful teams, not just clever engineering. We get into what happens when cross-functional teams stay trapped in silos, why timing matters more than many organizations want to admit, and how commercialization teams are often forced to inherit decisions around indication, price, value proposition, and evidence long after those decisions should have been challenged. Ayse also lays out one of the most useful distinctions in medtech: clinical value may get you access to the market, but adoption is what keeps you there. That means teams have to think beyond features and superiority claims and focus on whether the product creates real clinical, operational, and financial value for the full system around the user. If you work in medtech and you’re still treating commercialization like the last mile instead of a strategic input from day one, this episode is for you. #MedTech #MedicalDevices #Commercialization #ProductStrategy #GoToMarket

    47 min
  2. The Truth About Medical Device MVPs | Aaron Joseph & Russ Singleton

    Apr 3

    The Truth About Medical Device MVPs | Aaron Joseph & Russ Singleton

    If you think an MVP in medtech looks like a stripped-down prototype, you’re already behind. Talk to Bill. https://www.linkedin.com/in/founderandcdo/ In their return to LifeSci Continuum, medtech veterans Aaron Joseph and Russ Singleton tackle one of the most misunderstood concepts in medical device development: the MVP (minimum viable product). From surgical robotics to capital equipment, we discuss why “minimum” doesn’t mean cheap or simple and how smart teams use MVPs to learn faster without compromising safety, trust, or regulatory strategy. - Aaron Joseph https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajosephprofile/ - Russ Singleton https://www.linkedin.com/in/russellsingleton/ 00:00 Why MVP advice from software does not work for medical devices 01:14 What an MVP actually means in regulated medical device development 03:26 Why early customer feedback is essential for medtech startups 06:27 Why medical device MVPs are expensive and often not profitable 10:28 How clinicians reveal unexpected uses for new medical technology 14:25 Convincing early hospitals to use an unfinished medical device 17:23 The “pre-MVP” strategy and first-in-human medical device systems 19:00 Safety, reliability, and regulatory requirements for early devices 21:31 Why regulatory strategy must start early in product development In Medtech, Your MVP Isn’t Small. It’s Strategic. Founders love to throw around the term MVP. Usually wrong. In software, MVP often gets treated like a stripped-down version you shove into the world fast so you can learn. In medtech, that thinking can get expensive fast. Or worse, it can box you into a regulatory, clinical, or commercial path that makes future growth harder than it needs to be. That’s exactly why this latest Life Sci Continuum episode matters. In my conversation with medtech veterans Aaron Joseph and Russ Singleton, we unpack one of the most misunderstood ideas in device development: what a minimum viable product actually means when safety, trust, workflow, reimbursement, adoption, and regulatory strategy are all in the room, glaring at you. And here’s where Jobs to Be Done becomes incredibly useful. Too many teams define their MVP by asking: “What’s the smallest thing we can build?” That’s the wrong question. The better question is: What is the smallest thing we can build that helps us learn whether we can solve the real job better than the current alternative? That shift matters. Because the “job” in medtech is rarely just functional. A surgeon is not just trying to complete a procedure. A hospital is not just buying a device. A clinician is not just adopting a tool based on technical performance. They’re hiring a solution to reduce risk, protect outcomes, fit into workflow, preserve reputation, satisfy procurement, support training, and avoid creating chaos. That means your MVP cannot be defined by product features alone. It has to be defined by what you need to learn about the job, the context around the job, and the barriers that stop adoption. Sometimes that means your MVP is not minimal in any normal-person sense of the word. Sometimes it is overbuilt, manually supported, operationally painful, and commercially ugly. Good. If it helps you learn the right thing faster, that may be exactly what it should be. JTBD helps teams avoid a classic medtech screw-up: building an early device around what engineers can make instead of what the market actually needs to hire. It forces sharper questions: - What progress is the user trying to make? - What anxieties could stop adoption even if the tech works? - What workarounds are they fir

    22 min
  3. Why FDA Approval Isn’t Enough: Navigating Market Access | Lori Siegel

    Mar 25

    Why FDA Approval Isn’t Enough: Navigating Market Access | Lori Siegel

    Commercialization doesn’t have to be a solo sport. Schedule a call with Bill Schick to pressure-test your launch plan before surprises show up downstream. https://www.linkedin.com/in/founderandcdo/ In this episode, I sit down with Lori Siegel to talk about what really happens after FDA approval. Lori shares lessons from working on pre-launch commercialization in biotech, including why approval doesn’t automatically lead to adoption. We also dig into how journey mapping and Jobs to Be Done thinking can reveal the real customer, and why reimbursement and hospital budget realities can derail even the strongest clinical story. - Contact Lori Siegel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-siegel-mph-40453315/ 00:00 Introduction to medical product adoption challenges 01:29 From clinical trials to commercialization strategy 04:06 Identifying the real customer in healthcare markets 08:03 Why doctors are not the only decision makers 11:17 Messaging that works for hospitals and payers 17:35 The hospital budget reality most founders miss 24:54 NTAP reimbursement and funding new medical technologies 29:50 Why expert partners and industry networks matter Three Pro Tips 1. Treat Commercialization as a Parallel Workstream, Not a Phase Too many teams mentally sequence commercialization after clinical success, even when they intellectually know better. What Lori’s story reinforces is that commercialization decisions are not downstream tasks. They are design constraints. Budget impact, reimbursement mechanics, and operational feasibility quietly shape whether a product can exist in the real world at all. If these constraints are discovered late, teams are forced into reactive repositioning rather than intentional strategy. A practical way to act on this is to run commercialization planning in parallel with pivotal trial execution. That does not mean building final messaging prematurely. It means stress testing assumptions early. Who pays first? Where does the budget actually sit? What decisions are irreversible if we wait? Treating commercialization as a living system rather than a milestone dramatically reduces late stage surprise. Early commercial readiness assessments and go-to-market risk audits are just two of the ways you can accomplish this. 2. Separate Clinical Value from Operational Permission A subtle but critical insight from Lori’s story is that agreement does not equal permission. Clinicians may believe in the therapy. Payers may acknowledge long-term value. Yet operational permission, the ability to actually deploy the product, can still be missing. That permission often lives with pharmacy leadership, pharmacy and therapeutics committees, and operational workflows that rarely appear in early go-to-market plans. Teams should explicitly ask: Who grants operational permission, and what do they require to say yes? This shifts strategy from persuasion to enablement. Evidence packages, packaging decisions, and deployment models should be built around removing friction for these gatekeepers, not just convincing end users. 3. Build Your Expert Bench Before You Think You Need It One of the quiet throughlines of this episode is how often progress came from who Lori’s team spoke with, not just what they analyzed internally. Hospital leaders, reimbursement experts, and experienced operators surfaced constraints no spreadsheet could reveal. The mistake many teams make is not ignorance. It is waiting too long to ask. A practical rule of thumb: if a decision could materially delay launch, you should already know someone who has navigated it before.  Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to LifeSci Continuum for real-world insights on biotech, medtech, and pharma commercialization, from people who’ve lived it. #LifeSciContinuum #BiotechCommercialization

    35 min
  4. Regulatory Consultants and What They Get Wrong | Thomas Moore, PhD

    Feb 27

    Regulatory Consultants and What They Get Wrong | Thomas Moore, PhD

    You can’t outsource judgment, but you don’t have to do it alone. If you’re navigating go-to-market decisions in a regulated space, work with Bill through MESH as your fractional CMO. Talk with Bill at MESH. https://meshagency.com/about-bill-schick/  About this episode: Early-stage medtech founders often treat regulatory strategy as a checklist item. That mistake can cost years, capital, and credibility. In this episode, I sit down with Thomas Moore, founder of PTL Solutions, to understand why regulatory strategy is actually a business roadmap and how founders can engage with it intelligently without outsourcing their judgment. Follow Thomas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-moore-phd-40016753/ PTL Solutions: ptl-solutions.com 00:00 Defining Regulatory Strategy  01:13 Thomas Moore Background  02:23 Why Regulatory Strategy Is a Core Business Tool 05:41 The Problem With Checkbox Regulatory Thinking 08:49 When Regulatory Consultants Miss the Mark 10:58 Why Founders Must Stay Engaged in Regulatory Strategy 12:26 What Investors Look for in Regulatory Planning 14:25 Can Founders Build Their Own Regulatory Strategy 16:14 Where MedTech Teams Get Stuck 21:18 The Must Have Elements of a Strong Regulatory Strategy 25:56 Why Regulatory Strategy Is Not a Linear Process Regulatory strategy is often framed as a compliance hurdle — something to outsource, check off, and move past. But as Thomas Moore, PhD explains, that mindset quietly introduces risk across the entire business. With over two decades in medical device development, Thomas has seen what happens when founders receive a beautifully written regulatory document they can’t defend, explain, or adapt. In this conversation, he reframes regulatory strategy as a living roadmap — one that connects product design, clinical evidence, quality systems, investor confidence, and FDA credibility. This episode is especially relevant for early-stage medtech founders navigating limited budgets, compressed timelines, and high stakes. Thomas shares why founders don’t need to do everything themselves — but why they can’t afford to be hands-off either. From pre-subs to predicate strategy to “spinning plates” across functions, this conversation gives founders language, structure, and confidence to engage regulators and consultants from a position of clarity. If you’re building a regulated product and trying to move fast without stepping on landmines, this episode will help you think more clearly about where regulatory fits — and why it’s inseparable from business strategy. 🎧 Subscribe to LifeSci Continuum for founder-level conversations on commercialization, regulation, and building durable life-science companies. https://meshagency.com/about-bill-schick/ #MedTechFounders #RegulatoryStrategy #LifeSciences

    31 min
  5. Prepare For What Investors & the FDA Are Really Looking For | Tim Looney

    Feb 20

    Prepare For What Investors & the FDA Are Really Looking For | Tim Looney

    Need investor traction now? Bring in a fractional CMO  to package your story, de-risk your milestones, and turn Tim’s engineering plan into an investable go-to-market narrative. Let’s align tech, timeline, and TAM. Book a strategy call with Bill. https://meshagency.com/fcmo-fractional-cmo-fractional-marketing/ Founder-friendly, investor-real talk. In his second visit to LSC, Tim Looney (Northeast Biomedical) explains how to turn prototypes into investor-ready products: DHF done right, phased engineering plans, avoiding “jam it through” FDA myths, and picking the right money. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tlooney/  00:00 Why do MedTech founders get stuck after early traction 03:15 What do investors actually want to see before funding 07:10 Why does skipping process slow FDA and fundraising 11:45 What documentation really matters for MedTech devices 16:40 How should founders think about de risking early 21:30 What makes a MedTech product truly investor ready Investors aren’t funding your cool device—they’re underwriting your ability to de-risk it. In this episode, Tim Looney (President & CEO, Northeast Biomedical) returns, breaking down the investor lens for med-tech: show a credible timeline, a traceable design history file, and a stage-gated plan that prevents “surprise” testing at the eleventh hour. We dig into DHF essentials, how to avoid endless prototyping, and why “let the FDA tell us what’s missing” is the slowest, riskiest strategy. Tim shares a standout success—an EU class III clearance in two weeks thanks to a meticulous dossier—and a cautionary tale where a buyer inherited gaps and had to backfill under FDA scrutiny. We also talk capital: why the color of money matters, how to spot investors who add operational value, and the signaling power of ISO 13485 systems, external advisors, and documented learnings. If you’re preparing for investors—or realizing you should have prepared earlier—connect with Bill.  Translate conviction into execution-ready roadmaps and pressure-test investor fit before urgency takes over. https://meshagency.com/fcmo-fractional-cmo-fractional-marketing/  #MedTech #RegulatoryStrategy #InvestorReadiness

    26 min
  6. Develop Your Go To Market Strategy for Your Real Customer | Shehla Rooney

    Feb 6

    Develop Your Go To Market Strategy for Your Real Customer | Shehla Rooney

    Built a life-science product that works, but growth stalled? Talk to Bill about diagnosing your commercialization path before you spend years selling to the wrong buyer. https://meshagency.com/fcmo-fractional-cmo-fractional-marketing/  Physical therapist turned founder Shehla Rooney (GoKnee, https://www.linkedin.com/in/shehlarooney/ ) shares how early success selling to clinicians masked a deeper problem and why realizing the patient was the true buyer changed everything. This podcast focuses on the misfires, mindset shifts, and lessons that reshaped her go-to-market strategy. 00:00 Why growth stalls when founders guess their customer 06:10 Early assumptions and selling to the wrong audience 13:45 The moment customer discovery changed the strategy 21:20 Selling the solution instead of the product 28:40 How listening replaced guessing in go to market decisions 36:05 Applying one marketing lesson across the business 43:30 A simple playbook for founders building real growth If you’ve built something that works but growth still stalled, this episode will feel uncomfortably familiar. In Part 1 of this conversation, I talk with physical therapist and GoKnee founder Shehla Rooney about how a breakthrough recovery tool and years of hard work were slowed by one fundamental mistake: selling to the wrong audience. Shehla walks through the early illusion of traction from her professional network, why marketing to PTs and surgeons felt logical (but wasn’t), and how promoting features instead of outcomes missed what patients actually cared about. She also draws a powerful parallel between bad marketing and bad clinical care, skipping diagnosis and jumping straight to treatment. Before you spend another dollar on marketing, get clear on who actually converts. DM Bill for the ICP Clarity Worksheet. #MedTech #DigitalHealth #gotomarketstrategy

    40 min
  7. How to Build a Winning Life Science Sales Team | Pete Tortorelli

    Jan 21

    How to Build a Winning Life Science Sales Team | Pete Tortorelli

    Need go-to-market that sales actually uses? Book a 20-minute Fractional CMO consultation with Bill to align marketing, VOC, and field execution—so reps stop “pushing” and start solving.  - Visit https://meshagency.com/fcmo-fractional-cmo-fractional-marketing/ to learn more.  Pete Tortorelli (GM/Managing Director, Revvity) breaks down how to build life science sales teams that scientists actually trust. We cover application-specific selling, channel orchestration, hiring for integrity and curiosity, and why the best reps sometimes refer business to competitors. Connect with Pete: linkedin.com/in/ptortorelli 00:00 Why life science sales fails without market awareness 00:10 Building sales teams scientists actually trust 01:55 From accidental sales teams to intentional design 05:07 How to sell to scientists without “selling” 07:43 Do life science sales reps need a science background 09:58 Tracking trends that reshape lab workflows 11:41 Selling by solving real lab pain points 17:21 Why integrity beats short-term revenue 27:39 When sales drives product innovation Life science buyers aren’t shopping for hype; they’re validating hypotheses. Pete Tortorelli led Omni through growth and acquisition and now runs the business inside Revvity.  In this episode, he lays out how to build a sales model scientists respect: application-specific proof, honest discovery, and rigorous support from an app's “cavalry.” We get tactical: how to use interrogative selling to find true constraints (budget, staffing, SOPs), when to cut bait, and why referring a misfit project to a competitor can earn long-term trust. On team-building, Pete favors integrity and curiosity over perfect CVs, then surrounds reps with fast, accurate answers. Finally, we look forward. Your advantage isn’t a louder pitch; it’s a tighter proof. 3 Secrets to add to Pete’s Sales Model 1. Sales is your fastest learning loop — faster than product, faster than marketing. In life science, sales isn’t just about closing deals; it’s about learning in real time. If you’re paying attention, sales will tell you things your dashboards never will — before you’ve spent months building the wrong thing. The founders who win are the ones who treat sales as an intelligence engine, not just a revenue function. They expect their sales motion to surface insight weekly, not quarterly. If your sales conversations aren’t teaching you something new about your market regularly, that’s a systems problem. 2. Trust isn’t built by good intentions — it’s built by systems that hold up under pressure. Everyone says they value integrity. That’s easy when things are going well. The real test comes when a rep is behind quota, a quarter is tight, or a big logo is dangling just out of reach. Trust doesn’t survive on values alone — it survives on structure. Founders have to design systems that make honesty the default, even when it’s inconvenient. If you’re relying on “good people” without guardrails, you’re putting your reputation at risk without realizing it. 3. The real constraint in modern labs isn’t budget — it’s cognitive load. It’s tempting to assume price is the blocker, but more often it’s mental bandwidth. Labs are understaffed, overworked, and drowning in complexity. The products that win aren’t always the most powerful; they’re the ones that simplify life. Less explaining to a boss or a collaborator. If your product asks someone to think harder, it needs to replace something else entirely — otherwise it just adds friction, no matter how impressive it is on paper. Follow Life Sci Continuum for real-world commercialization lessons from operators who’ve built, scaled, and learned the hard way. Visit https://meshagency.com/fcmo-fractional-cmo-fractional-marketing/ to learn more.  #LifeScienceSales #MedTechGTM #CommercialE

    38 min
  8. To Scale: Focus on Your Customer Needs | Mike Pyne

    Jan 21

    To Scale: Focus on Your Customer Needs | Mike Pyne

    Need product-market fit and pipeline fast? Book a 30-min MESH sprint audit with Bill. https://meshagency.com/lets-connect/  In this episode, Founder/CEO Mike Pyne, Medoh Health shares how he turned short-form video + AI into a doctor-specific knowledge platform that saves hours of repetitive patient Q&A. We cover testing in the clinic (not just the cloud), communicating by text vs. QR, when to hire (and not hire) sales, and the founder mindset for speed without sacrificing quality. Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-d-pyne-627864136/    00:00 – Why medical information fails patients 04:15 – What patients actually want from medical content 08:30 – Building the “TikTok for medical information” 12:45 – How to earn trust in patient education 17:20 – Using patient feedback to improve healthcare content 21:45 – What keeps patients engaged with medical information 26:10 – Why short-form medical education works 30:35 – Balancing accuracy, speed, and attention in healthcare 35:10 – Scaling a patient-first medical platform 39:20 – Lessons for building patient-centered health products What happens when you mix short-form video, a pile of patient questions, and a founder obsessed with real-world feedback? Mike Pyne, Founder & CEO of Medoh Health, walks us through his journey from medtech sales and marketing at Smith+Nephew to building a platform that digitizes a doctor’s knowledge and delivers it to patients 24/7. Mike kept hearing the same thing in clinics: doctors repeat themselves all day and patients still leave with uncertainty. The winning combo: doctor-specific short videos plus AI that answers only from the doctor’s own content and documents. We dig into building in the clinic, not just in the cloud: direct patient interviews, text-first delivery (ditch the QR friction), and shipping fast while staying safe. Mike shares the hiring calculus (why you shouldn’t add sales until PMF), how to delegate without losing speed, and how the phrase “TikTok for medical info” unlocked stakeholder understanding. If you’re a founder in healthtech or any regulated space, this is a masterclass in iterative learning and pragmatic velocity. Three Practical Pro Tips 1. Design for the moment your customer stops paying attention One thing that shows up between the lines of Mike’s story is this uncomfortable truth: momentum stalls because life moves on. Patients forget. Clinicians get pulled into the next room. Founders assume adoption happens just because something is valuable. It doesn’t. As a founder, your real design challenge is what happens after the conversation ends. The teams that win plan explicitly for that drop. If your product only works when people are focused, it won’t survive contact with reality. 2. Separate “people like it” from “people will actually use it.” Founders get great at collecting positive feedback. “This is awesome.” “I’d totally use this.” “This would save us so much time.” And then… nothing changes. No behavior shift. No habit formation. No adoption. They miss the mark because they’re confusing agreement with integration. The hard work lives in understanding how something fits into a real workflow, not an ideal one. Who owns it when the founder isn’t around? 3. Treat distribution as a trust decision, not a tech decision Mike’s QR-code lesson is a classic founder trap: building something logical instead of something human. People adopt tools because they arrive through channels they already trust. No one actually cares about elegance. As a founder, it’s worth stepping back and asking: If adoption requires users to learn a new behavior and trust a new channel at the same time, you’ve doubled the risk. Book a 30-min MESH sprint audit with Bill. https://meshagency.com/lets-connect/  #DigitalHealth #MedTechMarketing #ProductMarke

    43 min
See All (42)

Trailer

About

I'm a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer for life science companies and I help them accelerate product adoption & make marketing work.This is LifeSci Continuum, where we explore the unbroken sequence of innovation, strategy, & growth in the life sciences industry. Join us as we explore the insights and experiences of founders, product managers, commercialization leaders, & marketing pros in the field. Discover the strategies & tactics that have worked for them, hear about their challenges and triumphs, and gain valuable knowledge to help your company thrive.From commercialization to full life cycle product management and marketing, learn about the latest trends in pharmaceutical, biotech, med device and healthcare marketing, product management, and branding.From groundbreaking startups to exit-stage brands, we uncover the secrets to success in the life sciences, reflecting the ongoing evolution that defines our industry.As a fractional CMO in the life sciences, I can help you establish, track, and optimize the right metrics and KPIs that align with your business objectives. This includes defining what success looks like for your specific stage of growth, whether it's early lead generation, nurturing prospects, or moving toward commercialization. I'll ensure that your marketing efforts are measured using data-driven insights, helping to identify opportunities, optimize campaigns, and make informed decisions to accelerate growth and ROI while minimizing wasteful efforts. For more specialized help with growth, check out my firm, Mesh.https://meshagency.com/ 

Information