“You can not stop and start R&D. You have to stay at it,” former Medtronic CEO Bill George says in a Medical Design & Outsourcing interview.
Former Medtronic CEO Bill George [Photo courtesy of Bill George]
“This is an industry that’s built on innovation,” he said in our analysis of the 2025 Medical Design & Outsourcing Medtech Big 100 ranking.
“Everything that I was associated with at Medtronic was built on innovation, and the companies that have been highly successful [focus] on innovation and R&D,” he continued. “When I say innovation, I’m distinguishing between another stent or another hip and real innovation where you’re talking about new, breakthrough ideas that fulfill unmet medical needs and bring new technology to patients.”
George had much more to say than that in our interview, and below you’ll find excerpts from our conversation that have been lightly edited for clarity and space.
For even more from George and additional Medtech Big 100 analysis and coverage, download our free special report. You can also watch an on-demand replay of a webinar with MDO editors discussing the project and keep up on the latest from our team by subscribing to our free email newsletter.
MDO: If there was ever a time when business leaders needed to maintain their True North heading, this is it, wouldn’t you say?
George: “We have to stay true to our purpose and our values. Tactics will change, strategies may change, but you have to stay true to your purpose and values. And people that don’t do that, you’ve seen a couple of organizations that have gone off the rails here in Minneapolis: One is Target and one is United Health. Both have had remote CEOs, one living in Sarasota, Florida, and the other living in London. And you just can’t manage a business today by Zoom. If you’re going to be a full-up business, you better be around.”
Previously: Move over baby boomers, former Medtronic CEO Bill George says
You’ve been outspoken about what’s happening at the federal level: layoffs at HHS and its agencies, cuts to medical research and universities, and the potential for more than a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid over the next decade. Now we’ve got tariffs hitting medtech. Is there anyone in the industry who’s speaking up about these issues publicly?
George: “I don’t know. I was quite outspoken when I was there, but that was related to a whole different issue, the slowdown at the FDA and the fact that Europeans were getting our products much faster than Americans. People had to fly to Germany to get an implantable defibrillator, which was kind of ridiculous. So I was very outspoken, but I think a lot of people don’t want to take the risk. They’re fearful of speaking out. But these cuts are huge. Teaching at Harvard Business School, I follow the cuts at Harvard, and 90% of all the cuts at Harvard are coming straight out of very advanced medical research ideas. They’re looking at how they solve problems like Lou Gehrig’s disease, glioblastoma, pancreatic cancer. These are high-risk areas, but they’re also very advanced. You can’t stop and start R&D. If you’ve got an R&D project, it’s 18 months in and you want to cut the budget and come back to it a year later, you might as well start over. You can stop and start an advertising program or a marketing program, You can not stop and start R&D. That’s why you have to stay at it, whether the numbers are good this year or not. When I was at Medtronic, we were advancing R&D on average about 20% a year. Revenue was growing 18%, but I never cut it. We had projects that didn’t work. Cardiomyoplasty — where the latissimus dorsi muscle is wrapped around the heart — was an example. It didn’t work clinically, so we dropped that. But not for financial reasons. It just didn’t work, so how can I continue to invest it after 10, 12 years? You have to give it a long time. That’s what makes the industry go. To the ones that are up in R&D: Great. Bravo. I think everyone should be. And look, you have to accept the fact you’re going to have failures. Any CEO who can’t accept the fact there are failures in breakthrough ideas isn’t doing his or her job. I think you’ll see more breakthrough ideas coming out from some of the smaller companies. They may get bought up by big companies, but they’re going to have more of that.”
You say CEOs shouldn’t be remote, but is there more medtech leaders could do to be remote friendly and encourage more women and people with families into the industry?
George: “Or give them flexible work hours. I would favor that. People in collaborative functions are much better when they’re together, much more innovative, much more creative. I got so much information wandering around talking to people, going into the labs, going to the production line. I learned a lot more about the quality of our products going to the production line than I ever did reading quality reports. There are functions like computer programming, R&D and marketing that easily can be done remotely. Having flexible work hours is really important so people can take care of their lives. And we had daycare on-site at Medtronic. Obviously the manufacturing people have to be there, and I think spending time with doctors — in the hospital, at the medical meetings, seeing what they’re doing — is extremely helpful for medtech people. I advocated that every manager at Medtronic should be out with the doctor, but a lot of them resisted that.”
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What are you working on these days?
George: “I’m very strongly trying to get more authentic leaders, mentoring a lot of people and helping them and teaching a lot of CEOs to stay true to their company’s purpose and their values. If your company’s been around for 75 or 100 years, you want it to be around for another 50 years. It’s your job. You won’t be around for that long, but you need to be true to what you believe and then use that to empower and motivate your people. Companies that don’t do that are really struggling right now. When you have breakthrough ideas coming through R&D, everyone wants to celebrate. Let everyone be a part of that. People support what they help create.”
Hear much more from former Medtronic CEO Bill George on medtech innovation, R&D and leadership in the MDO Medtech Big 100 Special Report.
