Dave Rosa shares how a lifelong drive to help others and his own health challenges led him into 32 years across orthopedics, cardiovascular, and neuro. Dave walks through his path from early marketing roles to becoming a CEO, and explains the innovation behind NeuroOne’s electrode platform designed to combine diagnosis and treatment in a single procedure—starting with epilepsy, expanding to trigeminal neuralgia, and now targeting lower back pain. He also discusses early work using the same technology for precise drug delivery to the brain, including a program focused on glioblastoma. Dave closes with leadership lessons on vision, culture, learning from mistakes, and giving back. Guest links: https://nmtc1.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/company/n1mtc/ Charity supported: Opportunity International Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com. PRODUCTION CREDITS Host & Editor: Lindsey Dinneen Producer: Velentium Medical EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode 086 - Dave Rosa [00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. [00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. [00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. [00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. [00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. [00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and today I'm delighted to welcome as my guest, Dave Rosa. Dave is an entrepreneur with three decades of experience in the medical device industry, spanning a variety of technologies and products. In addition to CEO roles with early-stage medical device companies, Mr. Rosa's background also includes senior roles with C.R. Bard Inc., Boston Scientific Inc., and St. Jude Medical, where his responsibilities included marketing, product development, and business development. He has been named as an inventor on multiple medical device patents, serves on seven corporate boards, and has raised 200 million in the capital markets. Well, Dave, thank you so much for being here today. I am absolutely delighted to have you on the show. [00:01:33] Dave Rosa: Well, thanks for having me. [00:01:34] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, of course. I would love, if you wouldn't mind, by starting out and just telling us a little bit about yourself, your background, and what led you to medtech? [00:01:45] Dave Rosa: Yeah. So, born and raised in a small town called Richport, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. And really was in love with the medtech industry from the time I was much younger. So I, I have been in medtech now, it's going on 32 years and that's everything from large medical device companies to, to startup companies. I've been in so many different areas of medtech. I've been in orthopedics, cardiovascular, and I mean everything involving the heart, I've been in it in some way, shape, or form, a-a-as well as neuro, which is what I'm in now. And, and I think, you know, why did I get into medtech? I think this all goes back to when I was a little kid. You know, I, I was the little kid that was walking street people to my house and bringing them into my home for my mom to make a meal. I don't know that she always appreciated that me doing that, but, but there, there were more than enough times where she sat me down and I was maybe only four or five years old, and she's like, "Honey I, I, I know you wanna help people, but you can't bring everyone home." And I was like, "Oh, oh, you know, okay, Mom." Of course, until the next time. But, you know, I think it started at an early age and, and really has carried through you know, the rest of my career [00:03:07] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, okay. So you've always been interested in helping people, and you've had a really nice variety of experiences within medtech. But tell us about your path from that early just interest and care in, in people and their wellbeing, to perhaps your educational journey and maybe, like, the first little bit of your career that led you to where you are now. [00:03:32] Dave Rosa: Yeah. So, in high school I was involved in sports and, and even prior to high school, and I had so many physical issues. So I had initially a shoulder problem that was I'll, I'll say pretty complicated, at least back in those times. And what I found is by the time I got to college, and, you know, I'm still trying to figure out what I wanna do with with my life and what career I wanna take. I, I was actually in chemical engineering, but came, came to the conclusion that I hated chemistry, which, which didn't help things out. And, and I really knew, you know, my, my passion was on the medical side, and a lot of it, you know, was driven because of my own issues, my own shoulder issues, because it really put a damper on, you know, any, any potential I had at especially playing baseball. So, so, i- in college, I went to Drexel University, there really wasn't a course for biomedical, undergraduate biomedical engineering that was, like, a graduate program. And, you know, I, I decided that I would take courses in electrical engineering and a program called commerce and engineering, which kinda merges both the business and engineering side of the equation. So, I, I actually started out not in medical. I was in electrical engineering, and I was probably one of the worst electrical engineers working at Westinghouse at the time. And I remember one of the managers saying to me, he's like, "You know, all, all the other engineers and marketing people really like working with you. Why is that?" And I said, "I, I really don't know other than, you know, I've always been a passionate person about whatever I'm doing." So, you know, so at that point, I started thinking that engineering was not the path for me, that you know, that I was really more, much more passionate about medical because it was impacting my life with my shoulder. And then by that time, you know, my knees and everything else started to go as well. But I graduated with a degree in commerce and engineering, and then after working a few years in electrical engineering for Westinghouse Electric I just started knocking on doors because I, I really-- my passion was, you know, helping others, and I wanted to be involved in an area that might help me being orthopedics. So that, that's kinda how I got my first job, knocking on doors, and Stryker Instruments decided they would take a chance on me, and that, that was kind of the beginning. [00:06:12] Lindsey Dinneen: Very nice. And so when you found medical device, was it this really exciting moment of realizing that it could marry your interests in engineering and your desire to help people? Was that like just this cool moment of going, "Oh, wow, like I, I can do both"? [00:06:31] Dave Rosa: Yeah. I, I, you know, I remember actually praying about this, like, "What am I supposed to do?" Like, you know, and, and "How do I go about this?" And I don't know, you know, it, it, it brought back some memories you know, of when my father was you know, was at the end of his life, and he was this stern Italian man. Never, you know, never-- there, there was no discussion about feelings or anything like that. It was like, "You do what I tell you to do. You, you talk when I tell you to talk. Otherwise, you know, you say nothing." So my, my dad's literally on his deathbed, and he says to me, "You know, I, I really wanna thank you, son, for taking care of your mother and I all these years with, you know, medical decisions." And he said, "You know, you, you always were helping people from the time you were a little boy." And it actually stunned me that my dad, who never appeared to be paying attention to anything regarding me, was like, "Hey, you know, you, you know, you really cared about helping people, not just us, but, you know, this, this goes back to the beginning for you." So it, it was also more of a reinforcement of like, "Yeah, I've, I've really gotta be in medtech, and I'm gonna start with, you know, how I can help my own issues and/or, you know, family's members' issues that they may have." [00:07:52] Lindsey Dinneen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think sometimes we don't realize the impact that we're making at the time and being able to just do what we feel is right and, and what we know helps others can actually make an impact, and then hopefully we get those opportunities like you got with, with your father to s- realize eventually, "Oh, okay, yeah, I, I am, I am on the right path doing, doing the right thing at this time." So yeah, it's great to have those moments of reinforcement, but. [00:08:26] Dave Rosa: And if you fast-forward, you know, to something again, just more reinforcement, although it's much later in my career and I've had other moments like this, but this was just last month. I was at, at a memorial service for one of the physicians that used our product to treat a, a young lady, she was 17 years old at the time for epilepsy. And so the doctor that performed a procedure on her had a tragic accident, passed away, and we were all at this memorial service for him. And the father along with the mother and, and this young lady who's now in college, they came up to me you know, we were, you know, just chatting about how unfortunate the situation is. And when I got ready
