What are the Biggest misconceptions Medical Device Manufacturers have About Lighting?

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Curious, how do you think the medtec landscape has evolved in how it approaches design and differentiation?

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Welcome to Beyond the Light, where we talk about the people, ideas, and innovations shaping the future of medical lighting and medical technology.

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I'm your host, Lindseay Jenovic. Today,

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I'm joined by Matt Filego, who has extensive experience leading commercial strategies in the medical technology and healthcare space. He is the chief

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commercial officer here at Lumatex. Hi Matt. It's great to have you here. Thank you Lindsay. Good to be here.

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You work really closely with these medical device companies across the whole industry. So I'm excited to dig into what you're seeing from a commercial perspective.

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Fantastic.

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So you've engaged with the industry from a lot of different angles. I'm curious,

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how do you think the medtech landscape has evolved in how it approaches design and differentiation? Interesting

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question. So, you know, at Limitex, we work with large multinational companies.

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We work with mid-size companies. We would work with early stage, you know, what I would call startup firms as well.

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Um, and it's affected different companies differently. So, good examples of that are, you know, the the larger

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and midsize companies, you know, tariffs have had a significant impact on what they do. You know, it's decreased the amount of money that they've been able to to spend on projects to put towards

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R&D. And we're work, in fact, we're working with a couple of firms now that have asked us to help nearshore medical device products that are currently

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produced in in high tariff areas to be manufactured in our facility in Mexico.

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Second, what I would call big evolution in the last short term is around funding of smaller companies. With the

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deauthorization of the SBIR program and NIH funding last fall, it certainly has

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a lot of people nervous and you know, we do a lot of work with early stage companies. We do expect that to to

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alleviate here shortly and we expect the um opportunity to help some of these firms accelerate here in the next month or two. So, we're excited about that.

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Yeah. Interesting. Sounds like you have to be really proactive with all these different situations arising and really be there to support our customers. You bet.

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So, going from that broader viewpoint to narrowing in a little bit more specifically on lighting now, what would you say are some of the biggest misconception that medical device

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manufacturers have about lighting in their devices? That's a really interesting question.

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Um, and you know, our company's motto is to improve life with light. A lot of times medical device firms take lighting of the devices to be an afterthought.

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And you know light can serve many different purposes. It can from aesthetics and branding. You know you can light logos in certain colors to

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enhance the company's brand. It can allow clinicians to see and touch controls in the dark. It can allow

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surgeons to see in unlit tunnled procedures to make their the procedure safer. And you can also treat conditions

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with light. Um, and I'm going to spend a little bit more time on here because with the the therapeutic area of light because it it's really important to us

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and what we're doing and where we're going. And when you look at the fields of phototherapy, photobiomodulation,

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photodnamic therapy, the application of light is critical from the appropriate dose and timing to the form factor. the

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the way that you deliver light and the design of that form factor is critical to delivering light into the right

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tissue or in a photodnamic therapy application to making sure that the photosynthesizer is activated in the

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right part of the anatomy. So you can see where where light application is fundamental to some of these procedures

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and Alumatex has designed therapeutic lighting devices for over 40 years and we have significant experience

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delivering light at the right dose at the right time in the right place for optimal outcomes.

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Yeah, it's wonderful. Obviously the earlier the better when you start thinking about lighting but sounds like Lumiex is you know we're here when they're ready.

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You bet. Absolutely.

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Yeah. So given everything that you're seeing today, I'm I'm really interested to see how you think this evolves. So as you look ahead, what shifts in the

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industry landscape do you think will influence how lighting is approached over the next several years?

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How lighting is approached over the next several years? Well, kind of going back to the macro landscape, the desire of,

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you know, large and mid-size firms to outsource the design and manufacture of medical devices, I don't believe is going to change significantly. And we're

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here to help. That's what we do from a design and manufacturing standpoint. But I think when I look at the future, uh there's some different things I see. You

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know, we've all seen the impact of surgical robotics and imageguided procedures. Well, they all need light.

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Um in the in the practice of of robotic and imageguided surgery, you need to you

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need to be able to deliver light in the right place. Just because it's a robotic procedure doesn't mean that light's not important to the outcome of the the practice. Now I think in the future

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there are going to be different ways to augment imaging with light through fluoresence through specific wavelengths

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differentiating between nerve and vessel tissue for example. So those are things I think are going to be exciting to watch on the surgical side. On the

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therapeutic side I'll be excited to see where some of this new phototherapy goes. sensitizing molecules to prime

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cancer cells in order to effectively deliver the imunotherapy treatment in the right location and have the maximum

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impact possible. So those those are just two small things that I'm I'm really excited to watch. I'm excited to see where light goes in the in the coming years for medical devices.

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Really fascinating and yeah, great time to be on the forefront of this. It is very exciting.

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Well, thanks so much for the conversation, Matt. I I really appreciate you sharing your insight today. And to our listen Yeah. To our

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listeners, thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow Beyond the Light for more conversations with the people like Matt who are

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shaping the future of medical lighting and medical technology. Until next time,

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keep pushing boundaries and keep improving life with light. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Lizzie.