There’s no place like medtech’s home

Please join us in Minneapolis this May for DeviceTalks Minnesota 2026.

Does medtech have a hometown?

From a historical perspective, one might point to Edison’s fluoroscope in New Jersey in 1896, or the founding of Revra DePuy’s orthopedics company in Warsaw, Indiana, a year earlier.

Others might argue that the first truly modern medical device emerged in 1949, when Earl Bakken and Palmer Hermundslie built the first wearable pacemaker and founded Medtronic.

But the historical argument is inconclusive. Too many great things have happened in too many places. Perhaps the better approach is a less fact-driven one: What’s the definition of home?

The immediate answer may be cliché, but it resonates: “Home is where the heart is.”

If we apply that axiom — the source of which is undetermined — the answer is clear.

Minnesota is medtech’s home.

I’ve covered medtech for close to three decades, and very few days have passed without me thinking, writing or talking with someone from that state’s deep and diverse community of medical device companies and professionals.

That vision of Minnesota is what drew us to relaunch DeviceTalks Minnesota last year at the University of Minnesota’s McNamara Alumni Center for a truly remarkable day filled with light, energy and innovative insight. We immediately committed to returning this year, and we will on May 4 at the same spectacular location.

I simply can’t wait to be back.

To be sure, I’m excited to sit down with keynotes, industry experts, and attendees to discuss the latest developments shaping our industry. We’ll be joined by many local and national leaders from Abbott, HistoSonics, Medtronic, Solventum and others.

But over the past few weeks, a different force has pulled my heart and mind to the region: a desire to stand with people who are defending their neighbors and communities.

Minnesota’s extraordinary courage and compassion against the federal government’s overreach has inspired all of us.

So while my professional eye is still drawn to the exemplary work being done by medical device companies across the region, my heart is drawn there through LinkedIn posts from medtech leaders and videos from Minnesota documenting previously unimaginable trauma.

If home is where the heart is, then to me, Minnesota is medtech’s home.

I can’t wait to be with you on May 4.

Go medtech,

Tom

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