The medical device and diagnostic industry are constantly growing and changing with new technologies being introduced to the market. A new era in medicine is being reflected through the incredible growth and breakthroughs in wearables, cloud-based IoT sensor systems, application of AI, and digital health. However, the diabetes monitoring industry is behind the curve and is seeking more effective monitoring systems. Marc Rippen (Founder and CEO at Alertgy) is addressing this need by transforming blood sugar monitoring to improve the lives of diabetics.
A Remarkable and Well-versed Career
Marc is a visionary leader, highly skilled engineer, scientist, and technical sales & marketing professional with a proven track record in product development, program management, and sales related to the application of high technology to solve what people thought were impossible problems. In his over 30 years of career, he has worked with multiple fortune 500 companies, the Department of Defense(DOD), NASA, SOCOM, and DARPA commercializing dozens of groundbreaking and revolutionary technologies. He holds various degrees across several disciplines such as — Microbiological Sciences and Immunology, Biophysics, Analytical Chemistry, Masters of Aeronautical Science, and Management of Engineering and Technology.
First Push towards Entrepreneurship
Marc always enjoyed helping people overcome technical problems, where he could apply his out-of-the-box thinking skills to creatively solve their challenges. His father inspired him to become an entrepreneur by successfully establishing a startup in his late 50’s. However, due to traumatic personal experiences—his father’s demise due to diabetes and his wife’s transition from gestational diabetes to Type2—ultimately pushed him towards the medical device industry. Consequently, with an aim to develop a non-intrusive blood sugar monitoring system to help diabetics, he established Alertgy in 2016.
What does Alertgy offer?
Alertgy provides Type 2 diabetics a way to non-invasively monitor their blood glucose levels on-demand, provide trending information, and alert them automatically if their levels are too low or high. It uses advanced materials and sensor technologies enabled by an application on a smartphone.
The company provides an inert non-invasive sensor system embedded in a comfortable wrist band. Alertgy’s technology eliminates the need for implanted sensors, patches, or devices that use chemical reactions or fluid transfer through the skin, and clamped devices that use lasers or other intrusive measurement techniques.
Helming the Company Operations
As the CEO, Marc provides the vision that is needed to move the company towards growth. His key role is leading the team and enabling each team member to provide their best effort. He finds the strengths of each team member and helps them achieve their personal and professional goals. Moreover, he ensures his investors get a reasonable return on their investment and provides millions of diabetics with a system that will greatly enhance their quality of life.
Having led Alertgy successfully since its inception, Marc believes that humility, honesty, empathy, caring for people that work with you, willingness to fall and learn from mistakes, and open-mindedness are some of the must-have qualities for an ideal leader. Additionally, he reckons that a leader should have passion, ability to listen, forgiveness, openness to learning, and a never-say-die attitude to thrive in today’s competitive world.
After effects of the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a huge toll on the global economy and industries around the world. Several industries have been drastically affected by the pandemic. The diabetes monitoring industry, however, is benefitting from the pandemic as it has forced the medical establishment to rethink how they can best manage diseases such as diabetes more effectively, remotely, and digitally.
Marc believes that the long-term effects of the pandemic will be quicker acceptance and use of Alertgy’s technology by the core elements of the medical and insurance industries. “In the future, we believe we can reach new industries and customers by applying our patented technology to many other forms of diagnostics. Ironically, the detection of COVID virus is one of the potential applications for Alertgy Technology,” asserts Marc. Under his auspices, Alertgy aims to become a leader in diabetes care as well as diagnostics and monitoring for a plethora of diseases and ailments.
Innovation is the Key to making a Better World…
“I believe innovation, especially in the technology field, is a key to making a better world, and I want Alertgy to be a part of that,” asserts Marc. Presently, Alertgy is primarily concentrating on bringing its device to over 90% of the diabetic population and the non-insulin-dependent hyperglycemic type 2 diabetics. This would provide over 400 million people around the world with a way to easily and effectively get alert if their glucose levels are too high or too low, and get them to measure their blood glucose continuously without the need for invasive or expensive systems. For this, the company will be pursuing an alert and surveillance application approval from the FDA.
Moreover, as 1/3rd of the world’s entire population is borderline diabetic, Alertgy aims to help them better manage their lifestyles to keep them free from being diabetic. “In the future, there is no limit what our technology can provide in the way of monitoring and diagnostics. Published research shows that our technology has the potential to track other metabolites and cellular makers within the body for other diseases,” adds Marc. With the help of this technology, Marc and his team of Alertgy are paving the way to be a premier leader in diagnostic technology.
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