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Alex Bodell
Founder & CTO at FormaPath, Inc.
Alex Bodell is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at FormaPath, a company focused on advancing patient care through innovative tools for tissue laboratories. He has over a decade of experience in product development and leadership within startup environments, particularly in the field of medical technology.
Professional Background
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Current Role: Bodell has been serving as the CTO at FormaPath since January 2023. His work primarily involves developing automated solutions to improve the handling of tissue samples, which is crucial for accurate cancer staging and treatment planning.12
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Previous Experience: Before joining FormaPath, he was the Founder and CTO of Parker Isaac Instruments, where he contributed to the development of medical devices aimed at enhancing tissue preparation processes. He also founded HortLED, a company that designed advanced LED lighting systems for indoor agriculture.13
Education
Bodell holds both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University, which he attended from 2005 to 2010.1
Innovations at FormaPath
Under his leadership, FormaPath has launched AdiPress, an automated tool designed to standardize lymph node dissection in cancer pathology. This innovation aims to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of cancer staging by automating the recovery process of lymph nodes from fatty tissues, significantly reducing the time required for manual dissection.23
Bodell's vision for FormaPath is centered on integrating automation in pathology labs to improve turnaround times and sample quality, ultimately benefiting patient care through better diagnostic accuracy.3
Highlights
This post inspired by 7 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HARDWARE STARTUPS by Will Ahmed WHOOP
I love to build things. This trait defined me in high school, led me to a Master's in mechanical engineering, and has been at the center of every company & project that I have worked on in my professional career. The truth is, this has not made for an easy career. Will said it best “It’s hard to understate the difficulty of the v1 launch of a consumer hardware company.”
Below are my 7 learnings so far:
- Make your own first prototype. If you can’t print it, cut it, glue it, etc. it will be difficult to iterate fast, and easy to delay testing your product’s hypothesis. You will be shocked at what you can build with a few basic tools and an Amazon cart filled with breakout boards.
With FormaPath, Inc. we started finding cancer positive lymph nodes with a 6 inch section of aluminum pipe. It looked rough. But it was enough to press tissue, test the hypothesis, and give us a positive sign to keep going.
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Stay focused. Now that you can build fast, it’s tempting to conquer all ideas. An idea that works on a bench is far from a product ready for general release. Staying dedicated to one product will give your idea the best shot at making it to the world.
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Pencils down. There will be too many prototype iterations. Your development will never be finished, but if your product will support your business, you need to ship. Version 1 will not be perfect, but you will learn fast if other people see the same value / potential as you. Pausing development for outside feedback is crucial.
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Stay close to home (at first). It’s tempting to work all over the country & world. Your early users are key to understanding broader reception of your product. Interacting with them in person is immensely valuable. If you ship far and wide, you’ll spend more time traveling than working with your customers.
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Listen. Remember, you’re building a product for others, not just yourself. It’s easy to talk at users and dismiss objections. You will receive critical feedback, it will be painful. Understanding the source and evaluating if you can (and should) make changes, leads to great products.
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Invest in yourself. A mistake I made was thinking that I should only work with contract mfgs. This put my development on other people's timelines. Invest in learning how you can build as much as possible on your own. It may not be pretty, but if you need it done by tomorrow, you at least can stay up all night.
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Build for purpose. Times will get tough. When you build products with purpose, you (and your team) can point to a higher mission to keep on pushing. Healthcare is a perfect example of this. Very difficult to work within, but if you're successful, you can change a person's life.
If you’re building a product company, I hope you crush it! But be warned, creating new things is addicting, you may find yourself asking one day “why do I keep doing this?”
I'm attending The Virtual MedTech Conference 2020. Join me! @MedTechCon #MedTechCon
