Inaugural Fogarty Prize Recognizing Medtech Innovations Seeks Nominations

March 17, 2025—Fogarty Innovation and the Linda and Mike Mussallem Foundation announced the call for nominations for the inaugural Thomas J. Fogarty Prize.

According to the press release, the Fogarty Prize was created to recognize an innovator or team that has developed and brought to market a singular, clinically impactful, life-changing medical technology. Recipients must be individuals (up to three per award); companies are not eligible.

The nomination period opens on March 24 and closes on July 31, 2025. The winner(s) will be announced in August. An independent selection committee will review nominations and select the annual award recipient(s). The selection committee members include Dorothy Abel; K. Angela Macfarlane; Mike Mussallem; Asha Nayak, MD, PhD; Carla Pugh, MD, PhD; Allan Will; and Bill Starling.

Fogarty Innovation, which is administering the prize, is a nonprofit, educational medtech incubator and accelerator. Headquartered on the El Camino Health campus in Mountain View, California, Fogarty Innovation was founded in 2007 by Thomas J. Fogarty, MD, to help innovators and young companies navigate the web of stakeholders on the path to commercialization of their technology.

Fogarty Innovation and the Mussallem Foundation stated that Dr. Fogarty, age 91 years, is a cardiovascular surgeon and acclaimed serial medical technology innovator. He acquired 190 medical patents for his revolutionary work, including the Fogarty balloon embolectomy catheter, the Hancock tissue heart valve, and the AneuRx endovascular aortic stent graft.

Dr. Fogarty is the founder or cofounder of more than 45 medical technology companies, and his inventions significantly influence the current practice of surgery. He has been inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame and awarded the Presidential Medal of Technology and Innovation.

The press release advised that the Fogarty prize is made possible through a foundational grant from the Mussallem Foundation. Mike Mussallem, cofounder of the Linda and Mike Mussallem Foundation, is the former CEO and Chairman of the Board of Edwards Lifesciences. Also, the international law firm, Wilson Sonsini, which is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, in the Silicon Valley, contributed to the prize endowment.

The Fogarty award consists of an unrestricted $100,000 cash prize, a custom-cast bronze medal, and a formal celebratory dinner and award ceremony with medtech leaders. The award will be presented at the dinner to be held in October 2025 in the Silicon Valley, the night before the annual Thomas J. Fogarty, MD: Focus on Innovation Lecture.

More information and the nomination form can be found on the Fogarty Innovation website.