I think I have a great idea…Now what?

Date: 02/26/2014
Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Location: 111 Snell Library
Speaker: Amar Sawhney, Ph.D., President and CEO, Ocular Therapeutix

I will talk about the process of challenging and evaluating one’s idea to determine if it is worth charging forward with and creating a company around. My talk will focus on a Medtech context and use my prior company, Confluent Surgical, as an example. An inventor is often enamored with their own idea and it is often useful to have a series of objective measures that can help evaluate the idea so as to eliminate personal bias. I will also speak to the process of what goes first few steps of founding a company, which includes what goes into a business plan, short discussion on the funding, and the team building process. Overall I hope to provide a primer on the thought process of embarking on an entrepreneurial journey.

Amarpreet Sawhney is the President and CEO of Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. a company focused on unmet needs in ophthalmic surgical wound management and drug delivery. Previously, he was Founder and CEO of Confluent Surgical (acquired by Covidien), a biosurgery company. He has founded six companies, which account for over 1,600 jobs created and over $1.5 billion in revenue to date. Mr. Sawhney helps foster entrepreneurship by mentoring young innovators and creating companies through Incept, a medical device incubator.