Chief Medical Officer (needed: expertise in therapeutic ultrasound & photonics)

Company Overview

Openwater is pursuing a fundamentally unique open-source approach to creating next-generation medical technologies with the goal of dramatically increasing access to therapeutics and diagnostics that can treat cancers, mental disease, COVID/Long COVID, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and beyond. The company has demonstrated strong clinical feasibility results on a single device that could enable treatment across this broad spectrum of diseases. The company’s core technology was developed under Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, who is a tech pioneer, executive, and entrepreneur in physics, photonics, and consumer electronics. Openwater’s underlying platform uses modulation of light and sound waves to create dramatically higher performing therapeutic ultrasound and diagnostic imaging than possible before.

Importantly, in 2024, Openwater announced that it was becoming the world’s first for-profit open-source, open-patent, open-clinical data, and open-safety-sharing company. This decision was made primarily because it represents a less risky, more compelling business model: rather than spending decades and hundreds of millions of dollars developing a singular device for a single disease, open sourcing their technology allows Openwater to generate revenue by selling hardware and services, all the while spurring collaborators to test treatments across hundreds of diseases simultaneously. Similarly, by mirroring the impact of Moore’s law in the consumer electronics industry, expanding access to the technology will enable Openwater to capitalize on the efficiencies that come with high volume production – every 10x increase in production corresponds roughly to a 10x decrease in costs. Thus, a semiconductor-based platform with adaptable software for each disease and treatment could yield million-fold cost savings per treatment, spread across numerous diseases using the same hardware and software platform. The open-source model also allows the company to fulfill its mission to improve human health at unprecedented scale and dramatically increase access to life saving therapies. As such, Openwater is not just developing new technology, but pioneering an entirely new approach to healthcare.

Opportunity

Given the progress Openwater has made in developing and validating its technology, combined with ample fundraising and anticipated growth trajectory, it is the ideal time recruit a new Chief Medical Officer who will lead the company through the next stage of its evolution. We are seeking a visionary leader who will build on the tremendous progress the company has made and scale the business through an exciting phase of growth and commercialization.

Position

Openwater is currently organized under the leadership of Mary Lou Jepsen, Ph.D., Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chair of the Board. Dr. Jepsen is a technology pioneer whose inventions have been adopted across virtual and augmented reality, laptops and smartphones, and holography and health wearables. She has been named to Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and is a former engineering executive of Facebook, Google, and Intel. She is also a former MIT Professor and founder of multiple hardware companies including One Laptop per Child (OLPC), in which she co-founded the company and served as Chief Technology Officer.

Additional members of Openwater’s Board of Directors include:

• Jeff Huber, Board Director, Founding Chief Executive Officer of Grail;

• Arjun “JJ” Desai, M.D., Board Director, Former Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Johnson & Johnson Innovation + JLABS; and

• Juan Enriquez, Board Director, Managing Director of Excel Venture Management.

Reporting directly to Dr. Jepsen, the Chief Medical Officer will be a key member of the leadership Team. The Chief Medical Officer will have primary responsibility to serve as an externally facing clinical officer, engaging with our customers, KOLs, partners, investors, and other key external constituents. Targeting customer interests, companies, research hospitals patient groups, and product categories to develop actionable business strategies, objectives, and plans aligned with short and long-term goals.

• Providing clinical and regulatory input to define product specifications to fit target indications and overall clinical and regulatory strategy; advising internal colleagues as needed;

• Gathering and incorporating perspective from the end users (i.e. clinicians) into product strategy. The job is likely to require frequent travel with touchpoints at governments, NGOs, and many organizations we are working with globally.

• Articulating the strength of Openwater’s platform to thought leaders in the scientific and, as appropriate, investment community as a function of continuing to build a following for the organization’s technology; leveraging key academic and industry contacts to the fullest extent possible;

• Ensuring that Openwater properly anticipates and exceeds the regulatory hurdles as an act of explicit strategy; resolve and provide guidance on technical study design issues, regulatory requirements, treatments, markets, and competition;

• Participating in business discussions on behalf of the company as the key clinical and regulatory subject matter expert, including discussions with major clinical partners and potential customers, as well as investors; and

• Leading all clinical and regulatory discussions with key opinion leaders.

The Individual

From an educational perspective, the desired candidate will have an M.D. or an M.D., Ph.D., as well as broad clinical expertise in therapeutic ultrasound and/or photonics. At a professional level, we are seeking an individual who possesses a minimum of 10 years of experience in a senior clinical development leadership position in therapeutic ultrasound and/or photonics. This individual ought to bring experience advancing and launching novel technologies and products in the medical device industry. Experience in ultrasound or imaging technology or technology that utilizes AI and machine learning would be highly attractive. This individual should possess strong experience collaborating with R&D teams and ideally in open-source development of product. The Chief Medical Officer will bring to bear a track record of shepherding novel medical devices through the clinic -- and beyond. As such, he/she must be comfortable having discussions with businesspeople and understanding and appreciating the commercial perspective. Given the scope of the Chief Medical Officer’s responsibilities, he/she must be available to travel to professional meetings often and meet customers around the world.

At a personal level, we are seeking an individual who is intelligent, trustworthy, creative, dedicated, entrepreneurial, and who operates with strong independent judgment. The Chief Medical Officer must be decisive, self-motivated, and highly communicative as he/she will work collaboratively and effectively across the organization to achieve shared objectives. This individual must be passionate and committed to the mission of developing products that democratize access and affordability of medical care. The desired candidate must appreciate new, innovative, futuristic technologies and be comfortable operating in a highly technical environment and working with scientists from a variety of disciplines, including physics and engineering. This role will require big-picture strategic thinking, but it is imperative that this individual maintain a hands-on, “roll up the sleeves” attitude. While it is critical that this individual fully integrate into Openwater’s culture of excellence, it is expected that this person will also be able to thoughtfully challenge the status quo, but at the same time support his/her ideas with sound, rational data. It is also paramount that the Chief Medical Officer have unquestionable integrity and the highest ethical standards.