Drawing on a structured study of 28 diagnostics companies and decades as a serial entrepreneur, Mickey Urdea examines the decisions that tend to determine whether MedTech companies reach commercial outcomes, and where companies lose ground before they realize it.

“Built for Exit: What Drives MedTech Success” is now available as an on-demand recording. In this MedTech Unscripted conversation, Scott Phillips, CEO of StarFish Medical, sits down with Mickey Urdea, PhD, diagnostics pioneer, serial entrepreneur, and founder of Halteres Associates, to examine what actually distinguishes companies that reach commercial outcomes from those that do not.

Mickey’s perspective is grounded in firsthand experience across multiple companies, including 17 years at Chiron where he led the development of the first viral load tests for HIV and hepatitis C, and subsequent advisory work with hundreds of companies spanning diagnostics, drug delivery, and MedTech. He brings to the conversation both a structured framework for evaluating where companies go wrong across the product lifecycle and a candid view of the decisions that are harder to recover from than they appear at the time.

MedTech founders and executive teams are operating in an environment where capital is more selective and exit timelines are less predictable. The choices made around product definition, team, market validation, reimbursement strategy, and capital structure have compounding effects, often in ways that are not visible until a company is already past the point where correction is straightforward. This session examines those patterns and what founders can do differently when the path forward is still open.

The recording includes a live audience Q&A, covering questions around capital strategy, IP, investor positioning, and how to get an honest read on where a company actually stands. It is a useful reference for MedTech founders, executives, and leadership teams who want to understand how early decisions shape long-term value and commercial outcomes.