You originally founded MedTech World in 2019 with the ambition of positioning Malta as a hub for medical technology and digital health. Having moved from the hospital environment into the global medtech ecosystem, what did you feel was missing from the industry that you wanted MedTech World to address?
My starting point was medicine and surgical training, so my interest in technology has always come from the clinical problem. In hospital, you see how much depends on the tools, information, and resources available to the team. You also see the frustrations: delays in diagnosis, procedures that could be less invasive, and processes that take clinicians’ time away from patients.
What struck me as I became more involved in the industry was how fragmented the journey from an idea to clinical use can be. A clinician might understand a problem intimately but have no connection to someone who can build a solution. An engineer might develop an impressive product without enough clinical input. A founder might have encouraging results but struggle to find the funding or hospital partner needed for the next stage.
I wanted MedTech World to help close those gaps. Bringing people into the same room is the beginning; the value comes when they understand each other’s needs and decide to work together. That could mean an investment, a clinical study, a distribution agreement, or an introduction that changes a company’s direction.
There was also a personal ambition to build something international from Malta. We are a small country, which makes relationships accessible and allows us to bring people together in a very direct way. I believed Malta could become a valuable meeting point for the global medtech community.
As we have grown, I have become even more convinced that innovation needs people who can connect the different parts of the system. An excellent technology can stall for reasons that have very little to do with its engineering. Our role is to help those conversations happen earlier and give good ideas a better chance of reaching patients.
You have the opportunity to meet medical technology innovators, founders, investors, and healthcare leaders from across the world. You also see developments emerging across different healthcare markets. What are the most interesting clinical developments or medical technologies currently on your radar?
Three areas particularly interest me: AI that supports a clearly defined clinical task, technologies that make diagnosis more accessible, and devices that allow care to continue beyond the hospital.
With AI, I am most interested in applications where you can ask a precise question about clinical value. Does it help identify something that warrants attention? Does it help prioritise a case? Can it support a clinician’s decision without adding unnecessary complexity? Imaging and endoscopy are examples where regulated AI products already exist, giving us something concrete to evaluate.
I also find the convergence of engineering disciplines exciting. A diagnostic product might combine a sensor, imaging, software, and remote clinical review. Understanding the whole pathway becomes as important as understanding the individual device.
What I would encourage clinicians to watch is the evidence behind the product and the work required to introduce it. A promising demonstration tells you something, but you also need to understand performance in the intended population, integration into practice, training, and who takes responsibility for acting on the result.
Some of the most valuable developments may appear quite modest. A technology that removes a recurring delay or makes an established procedure easier to deliver can have a considerable impact when used across a healthcare system.
Given your own background in surgical training, what developments do you believe will have the greatest impact on surgical practice? Are we approaching a fundamental shift in how surgery is performed?
This is particularly close to me because of my surgical training. Surgery brings together technical skill, judgement, teamwork, and the ability to respond when circumstances change. Any technology entering that environment needs to support those realities.
I believe the biggest changes will come from the combination of robotics, better visualisation, image guidance, simulation, and the more systematic use of surgical data. Each has potential individually, but their interaction is especially interesting: better planning before a procedure, more useful information during it, and stronger opportunities to learn afterwards.
Robotics attracts much of the attention, understandably. My interest extends to how a system could support precision, access, and the performance of specific tasks. But its practical value also depends on setup time, the learning curve, maintenance, theatre capacity and the cost of delivering a procedure.
Training is another major opportunity. Surgical education depends heavily on supervised experience, and that will remain essential. I am interested in how simulation and better feedback could make that experience more structured, helping trainees understand what they need to improve and giving trainers more useful ways to assess progress.
I do think we are approaching a significant shift, although it will happen at different speeds across specialties. We need to be careful about treating every technical advance as a clinical advance. The evidence must show where a technology helps and for whom.
Ultimately, I would judge success by safer procedures, better recovery, and wider access to high-quality surgical care. Those outcomes will require investment in people and implementation alongside the equipment.
In recent conversations, you have highlighted a growing shift within medtech towards prevention, longevity, and helping people remain healthier for longer, rather than simply treating disease once it develops. What technologies are you seeing that are driving this change?
What attracts me to prevention and longevity is the possibility of preserving health, function, and independence for longer. From a clinical perspective, that is an ambition people can immediately relate to: remaining mobile, managing a condition well, avoiding preventable complications, and continuing to participate in everyday life.
Technologies such as wearable sensors, remote monitoring, and diagnostics closer to home are creating opportunities to understand what happens between appointments. Continuous glucose monitoring in diabetes is a useful example of how repeated measurements can support the management of an established condition. More broadly, there is growing interest in identifying meaningful changes earlier and connecting people to appropriate care.
However, gathering information is only one part of the task. We need to know that the measurement is reliable, that it has clinical meaning, and that someone can act on it. There also needs to be a clear pathway for the person receiving an alert. Otherwise, we can create uncertainty and additional pressure on services.
I think the strongest companies in this area will be those that understand behaviour and healthcare delivery as well as the technology. A product needs to fit into someone’s life, and the care team needs a manageable way to use the information it generates.
Longevity also requires discipline in how we communicate. There is enormous public interest, but the strength of evidence varies between interventions and claims. I am much more interested in measurable improvements in health and quality of life than in ambitious promises.
The opportunity is considerable. To realise it, we need technologies that help people and clinicians make better decisions, with evidence that those decisions improve outcomes.
MedTech World has expanded across Europe, the Middle East, North America, and Asia, giving you exposure to healthcare systems with very different levels of infrastructure, investment, and access to technology. Are you seeing particular differences in the types of medical innovation being prioritised across these regions?
One of the most useful lessons from building MedTech World internationally is that a strong clinical need does not automatically create a workable market. A product can address an important problem and still struggle because the funding, purchasing process, infrastructure, or training needed to use it is missing.
In the USA, conversations often focus on reimbursement, commercial scale, and how a technology fits into the economics of a provider. In Europe, I frequently hear about navigating different healthcare systems, generating evidence, and working through procurement. Across the Gulf, we see strong interest in building healthcare capacity, attracting expertise, and establishing international partnerships. Asia encompasses enormously varied markets, with different strengths in engineering, manufacturing, research, and healthcare delivery.
Those are observations from our work rather than fixed descriptions. There are significant differences within every region, and founders need to understand the specific setting they want to enter.
Access has to be considered during development. Who will use the product? Who pays for it? What happens when it needs servicing? Can it operate with the connectivity available locally? How much training is required, and can that training be sustained when staff change?
These questions influence whether a device can become part of routine care. They also create opportunities for innovation in affordability, portability, ease of use, and service delivery.
Our contribution is to connect companies with people who understand those local conditions: clinicians, hospital leaders, investors, distributors, and public institutions. We want those relationships to begin early enough to influence the product and its route to market.
For me, global impact means a technology can be used consistently and effectively in the places where it is needed. That requires a complete pathway from development through to long-term support.
What are your ambitions for MedTech World over the next few years? And for our HCP readership, what would you encourage clinicians to engage with, explore, or get involved in if they want to be part of the next generation of medical innovation?
My ambition is to build a platform that the medtech community can rely on throughout the year. Our events create the opportunity to meet, but I want the relationships and work that follow them to become an even greater part of our impact.
We are developing that network across Malta, Dubai, North America, and Hong Kong, connecting people who might otherwise operate in separate markets. A founder may need clinical expertise in one country, investment from another, and a commercial partner somewhere else. We want to help them build those relationships with a better understanding of what each side needs.
Growing attendance is one measure of progress, but I am increasingly interested in what happens afterwards. Did a company find a suitable investor? Did a hospital identify a technology worth evaluating? Did a clinician become involved in development early enough to improve the product? Those are outcomes I want us to understand and support more consistently.
Malta remains central to that ambition. I would love to see more of the international activity we bring here translate into lasting clinical collaborations, research, investment, and opportunities for local professionals. Hosting people is valuable; building continuing relationships with them is where the longer-term opportunity lies.
For clinicians, my strongest encouragement is to get involved early. You do not need to leave practice or establish a company to make a meaningful contribution. You can help define an unmet need, advise on a study, challenge a design assumption, or explain why a product would be difficult to use during a busy shift.
That practical knowledge is immensely valuable. I would also encourage clinicians to become more familiar with how technologies are evaluated, funded, and introduced into healthcare. Understanding those processes makes it easier to influence them.
The next generation of medical innovation needs clinicians who are willing to ask difficult questions and work across disciplines. I would like MedTech World to give more of them an accessible way to take part.
