Brian Craig ’98 — Advancing Medical Care Around the World

Brian Craig has spent his career developing innovative products to advance medical care for patients around the world.  For his contributions in the medical products and services industry, Brian has been named a Significant Sig in 2024.

Leading Innovation in the Medical Device Industry

Brian H. Craig ’98

Brian started his professional career at Medtronic where he helped establish cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), which is a multi-billion-dollar market and standard-of care therapy to treat heart failure. Brian also focused on early-stage innovation, including the leadless pacing program leading to the Micra™ pacemaker, the world’s smallest pacemaker. He also started the extravascular implantable cardioverter-defibrillator program, which recently received FDA approval.

In 2009, Brian left Medtronic to join ev3, a small business that developed peripheral vascular and neurovascular innovations. At ev3 he led the atherectomy franchise and turned it into the fastest growing franchise in the business. This success led to the acquisition of ev3 by Covidien.  As a part of Covidien, Brian served as VP Marketing-Emerging Markets and moved to Singapore where he had marketing responsibility across all geographies except the US and Europe. His primary responsibility was establishing an R&D center in Shanghai with over 200 engineers to build products to accelerate growth in emerging markets. During this time, Covidien was the fastest growing, large medical device company throughout emerging markets.

Medtronic’s acquisition of Covidien brought Brian back to the U.S. as VP of Strategy and Business Development at Surgical Innovations where he was responsible for strategy, portfolio management, and business development for the second largest and most profitable portion of Medtronic’s portfolio. Brian led a new organizational redesign and completed over $600M in acquisitions. During this time, the business grew ~1.5x faster than market growth.  Brian also chaired the marketing counsel at Medtronic which defined best in class marketing capabilities and programs across the enterprise.

Creating New Companies to Drive Innovation

Brian is currently founder and CEO of ConvergAscent, providing consulting services and establishing new medical companies. In this role, Brian led the development of the freeze-dried plasma (FDP) program for Teleflex, which has 30 people developing a shelf stable plasma for civilian and military use.   Through ConvergAscent, Brian founded and served as the CEO for five different startups: Elements Endoscopy, Isola Therapeutics, Cardathea, Eagle Point Medical Delivery and Rocky Mountain Biphasic.  Brian has over 13 issued patents involving cardiac navigation, drug delivery, pharmaceutical formulation, and flexible endoscopy platforms. Two of his innovations impact the national interests of the United States, with one product resulting in Congress enacting legislation providing the military unprecedented authority over the FDA for approvals.

Making a Worldwide Impact

Brian has focused his professional charitable efforts on addressing global healthcare inequities and developing the next generation of innovators.   In 2005, Brian partnered with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Aravind Eye Institute in India to expand infrastructure to eradicate preventable blindness throughout the world. Brian voluntarily consulted with Aravind for over six months and lived in India for a month to implement cost accounting in Aravind’s financial systems so investment decisions could be prioritized and tracked.

In 2015 Brian learned that an estimated five billion people worldwide do not have access to affordable and safe surgical and anesthesia care.  Covidien was the global market leader in both surgical and anesthesia products. Brian deployed his global team and learned that there was limited to no local capability to repair and maintain the equipment. This resulted in a change to how Covidien developed and serviced products and worked with local governments and NGOs to create training programs for equipment repair.

Brian’s team conducted another study in collaboration with the U.S. National Institute of Health and National Cancer Institute that led one of Brian’s companies, Isola Therapeutics, to focus on developing a low-cost treatment for esophageal cancer in East Africa. Brian is currently working with local clinicians and health ministers to develop solutions that address the level of care and affordability for patients in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia.

The Next Generation of Innovators

Brian mentored a group of students at Macalester College who enrolled in a class with cross-functional backgrounds to explore new applications for one of his companies. He also sponsors students as interns and guides their efforts to have direct experience in creating medical innovations.   He directly invests his time in developing the next generation of innovators.

Recognized by his Peers

Brother Craig throughout his career has been recognized by his peers as a leader in his field with the following honors.

Covidien Corporate Innovation Award Winner 2013
Covidien Corporate Innovation Award Winner 2011
EV3 President’s Breakthrough Award Winner 2010
EV3 Marketing Professional of the Year/President’s Club Winner 2010

Brian’s impact on the biomedical industry as an executive and inventor is significant from a financial standpoint, having influenced billions of dollars of capital through investments and acquisitions.  His most significant impact can be measured in the improved health and wellness of countless people around the world who have utilized the many products, treatments, and services he has overseen.

Sigma Chi’s Impact on My Life and Career

Brian remarked, “I am deeply humbled that my peers would nominate me for this award.  It is a great honor. 

Sigma Chi has had a transformational impact on my life and career.  It was my Purdue experience.  I was fortunate to have a strong pledge class that helped make me a better person.  As young brothers, our pledge class was exposed to older brothers in the chapter who set an impressive standard for community involvement, leadership, and brotherhood.  Serving as Consul was easily the most transformative leadership experience of my life.  After Purdue, I was able to serve as a facilitator for Sigma Chi Horizons program where I learned fundamental leadership principles that I still use today.  I can easily say that Sigma Chi was instrumental in helping me become the person I am today.  I feel very fortunate to be a Sigma Chi, especially at Delta Delta.”

Brian was a Group Facilitator and on the Curriculum Committee for two years for Sigma Chi Horizon’s Leadership Program.  Brian and his father, David Craig ’69, are the first father and son to be named Significant Sigs from Delta Delta.