Medical device innovation requires a broad range of skillsets; entrepreneurship, an expert knowledge in engineering and biology, a deep understanding of clinical regulations, the ability to grasp complex financial and funding requirements, and strong leadership traits to name a few.
At the cross section of all of these skills sits Navi co-founder and COO Shing Yue Sheung, who applies his steady mind and broad knowledge to help guide Navi operations across multi-disciplined areas.
When Shing is not busy with QMS and ISO regulations, you will find him pitching to investors, diving into product design, or mentoring the next generation of Biomedical engineers. He was recognised for his achievements at Navi by being listed in “Forbes 30 under 30” in 2018, and is constantly driving team Navi to achieve its collective vision of creating brighter, healthier futures for children everywhere.
Q: Tell us about your journey to become a co-founder of Navi?
I have been very fascinated with medical devices and their development since starting my studies at University; I enjoyed the ability to problem solve and to find a link between medicine and technology to improve the lives of patients. In my second year of my Master’s of Engineering degree, I enrolled in the BioDesign Innovation subject, where the goal was to educate students on the medical device commercialisation pathway. By chance, I formed a team with an amazing group of individuals (who are now my Navi co-founders) to develop a solution to an unmet clinical need of positioning central lines in the neonatal intensive care unit - I guess you can say that’s where my life changed. We worked quickly to understand the clinical problem, develop several prototypes, validate our business model, and came up with a team name ‘Navi’ based on our first solution to assist with navigating a central line to its optimal position.
Pictured (left to right): Navi CTO Mubin and Shing
After our final assignments were submitted, we continued to work on our medical device concept. In the meantime, I was working in a large consulting firm in their R&D Tax Incentive Team, where I realised that while I was assisting clients utilise their R&D activities through the Federal Government’s R&D Tax Incentive Scheme, I wanted to have my own R&D project which reinforced my motivation (any additional hours I had) to work on Navi.
A few months later, we entered Navi in a pitch competition in Suzhou, China. This was my first ‘formal’ pitch and we felt blessed to finish in second place. This was also one of the first times we had presented our concept to a panel of experts for their assessment, and we really felt that other people believed in our idea and that we were onto something worth pursuing. A week later on 8th July 2017, we incorporated our company ‘Navi Medical Technologies Pty Ltd’ and I have been a full-time co-founder ever since.
Q: In 2017 you spent some time in Houston, Texas at the TMCx Medical Device accelerator program at the Texas Medical Centre. Tell us about your time there, and how it helped Navi in its development journey?
TMCx was one of our first big breaks into the medtech startup ecosystem and helped establish a foundation of understanding of the steps required for device commercialisation. I was sent to Houston for the TMCx program as we felt this would be the best way to take Navi to the next level and ‘accelerate’ the work we were doing. And I felt that’s what it did – Navi was given great exposure to the TMC ecosystem and we established connections with other medtech startups. And we received some early funding from the FDA-funded pediatric device consortium while I was in the US which really helped our initial product development and commercial activities. Towards the end of TMCx, a few of my co-founders joined me in Houston where we presented Navi on ‘demo day’, established new clinical and commercial contacts, and ate lots of BBQ.
Pictured: Shing pitching at the TMCx Demo Day in Houston, Texas
Q: What is the most challenging part about your role as a COO of a medtech startup?
I have a background in commerce as well as engineering, while Alex (our CEO) mainly focuses on the commercial side of things and Mubin (our CTO) mainly focuses on all things technical. So naturally I fit somewhere in between with shared responsibilities in product development and commercial activities. Having responsibility on different ends of the company means that I need to ‘context switch’ frequently which can sometimes be a challenge especially when juggling many projects at once. It keeps things interesting, but nowadays I try and stay focussed on one task at a time to avoid getting too side-tracked.
Navi team pictured from left to right: Shing Yue Sheung (COO), Mubin Yousuf (CTO), A/Prof Christiane Theda (CMO - Medical), Wei Sue (CFO), Alex Newton (CEO)
Q: What is your current highlight in your Navi journey?
Pictured left to right: Shing with Navi CTO Mubin Yousuf
The journey of medical device development has been a long one, so inherently there are many highlights for me to choose from. One of the earliest highlights in my Navi journey was related to kicking off our observational clinical study in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) – where we had set up our equipment and prepared for our first recording. We established all necessary connections to the patient and we held our breath to see the results on our display. No signal. We stayed calm as we were confident that our set-up was correct. While Mubin and I inspected our equipment, we heard Christiane’s voice from the bedside: “Ah, the line is clamped” and with a quick motion she removed the line clamp and voila, a beautiful ECG signal was displayed on our set-up. Success! Christiane, Mubin and I were delighted with the results and we shared a moment that I will never forget.