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Innovators, Empowering Healthcare

The launchpad for innovation

Runway Healthcare is a Medical Device Venture Studio, investing in early-stage technologies that transform patients’ lives. We work hand-in-hand with entrepreneurial doctors, professionals, and businesses to help activate their ideas and realize their visions.

Operating with an eye for excellence

As a medical device accelerator, we have an eye for identifying truly innovative ideas in their infancy, which we then fund and nurture right up to the point of commercialization. We lay the course for accelerated value creation through strategic planning, best-in-class processes, and operational excellence.

Investing with surgical precision

We live by the mantra, “Early In, Early Out.” Our investment approach is one of speed, efficiency, and confidence. We invest and manage in early- and development-stage MedTech companies and prepare them for commercialization in a fraction of the time.

Advancing the future of MedTech

The innovators and companies we work with tap into our full range of resources to realize their technologies’ commercial success. By efficiently managing the entire product development process, we’re able to effortlessly transfer that technology to multi-national companies at the optimal valuation.

Team

A team of difference makers
Runway Healthcare is made up of a dedicated group of industry veterans, each with a lifelong passion for MedTech innovation. Our team brings so much more than just capital to our portfolio companies — we bring a wealth of experience, expertise, and drive.

General Partners

Jeff F. O’Donnell, Sr.

Managing General Partner

Bill Rhoda

General Partner and Chief Technology Officer of Portfolio Companies

Jeffrey F. O’Donnell, Jr.

General Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Portfolio Companies

William John Odenthal

General Partner

Venture Partners and Advisors

Andy Iott

Venture Partner

Craig Carra

Finance and Accounting Advisor

Donald Foley

Venture Partner

Kevin Cody

Venture Partner

Nicholas Pachuda, DPM

Venture Partner

Samuel Navarro

Venture Partner

Portfolio

Fueling transformative healthcare companies
Our efficient approach to developing innovative technologies enable physicians to provide the best possible patient care.

Waypoint Orthopedics

The future of vertebral fixation

Toetal Solutions

Providing surgeons with confidence and simplicity in Hammertoe Surgery

Pace Surgical

Enhancing Foot and Ankle Fixation, One Step At A Time

Are you an entrepreneur, doctor, or MedTech startup with a game-changing idea?

Let’s Run With It

News

Waypoint Orthopedics Raises $1.7 Million in New Financing

OrthoSpineNews

Waypoint Orthopedics, Inc. Announces Appointment of Andrew Iott to Board of Directors

OrthoSpineNews

Toetal Solutions Raises $1.02 Million in New Financing

Yahoo! Finance

Toetal Solutions Secures $1,800,000 in New Financing to Pursue Product Development and Regulatory Approval

Newswire

Waypoint Orthopedics Announces FDA Clearance of the Waypoint GPS

Yahoo! Finance

Runway Healthcare is launching its second venture fund and third startup

Philadelphia Business Journal

Milestone Achievement: Waypoint GPS Assists Dr. Stephen Banco in Groundbreaking First-in-Man Spine Surgery

Newswire

Runway GP and CEO named to Philadelphia Titan 100 for 2023

Titan 100

Runway Healthcare, Managing General Partner, Jeff O'Donnell Sr. participates in LSI panel discussion on raising capital

Life Science Intelligence
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Jeff F. O’Donnell, Sr.

Managing General Partner

Jeffrey O’Donnell, Sr. brings more than 25 years of Board and Chief Executive experience running emerging medical device firms. Businesses under his direct leadership have achieved over $1.5 Billion in value creation from initial public offering of stock or mergers and acquisitions.

Jeff retired as CEO and Founder of Trice Medical an emerging growth medical device company developing in-office arthroscopy tools. In 2008, Jeff founded and ran Embrella Cardiovascular, a medical device startup company, which was sold in 2011 to Edwards Life sciences (NYSE: EW). Prior to Embrella Cardiovascular, Jeff served as President and CEO of PhotoMedex (NASDAQ: PHMD) from 1999 to 2009. Prior to PhotoMedex, Jeff was the President and CEO of Cardiovascular Dynamics. His team took CCVD public on NASDAQ in June of 1996 and purchased Radiance Medical Systems and Endologix (NASDAQ: ELGX). From 1994 to 1995 Jeff held the position of President and CEO of Kensey Nash Corporation (NASDAQ: KNSY). Additionally, he has held several senior sales and marketing management positions at Boston Scientific Corporation, Guidant Corporation and with Johnson & Johnson’s Orthopedic Division.

In 2005, Jeff was named Life Sciences CEO of the Year by Price Waterhouse Coopers, and in 2011 was named the Greater Philadelphia Emerging Entrepreneur of The Year by Ernst & Young.

Jeff is currently a Venture Partner of Laidlaw Venture Partners, the Chairman of the board of AerWave, a Director of Algorithm Sciences, and a Director of Accure Acne. He joined the AdvaMed Accel Board of Directors in 2016 and serves as an observer on the Membership, Ethics and Technology and Regulatory committees of the AdvaMed Board. Previously, Jeff served as Chairman of the Board for Strata Skin Sciences (NASDAQ: SSKN) (2 years), as well as a Director on the Board at Cardiac Science (7 yrs.) and Endologix (12 yrs.). Jeff is a graduate of LaSalle University and was recently inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma, an international honors society.

Jeff serves as Executive Chairman to all Runway Healthcare, LP portfolio companies.

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Bill Rhoda

General Partner and Chief Technology Officer of Portfolio Companies

Bill Rhoda has a long history in the orthopedics implant space, starting his career with Synthes Spine in the late ’90s as a product development engineer. Bill later became a founding member of Globus Medical, serving as the Vice President of Product Development. He has developed a rapid product development process that dramatically shortened the time from concept to market introduction from 2+ years to 12 months. Since his time at Globus in 2012, Bill has helped form and develop new and innovative companies as well as helped create a MedTech venture capital firm with multiple exits. Bill is a graduate of Drexel University and serves as the Chair for the Dean‘s Executive Advisory Council for Drexel’s Biomedical Engineering school. Bill also serves on the boards of various medical device companies.

In addition to Bill’s role as a General Partner he serves as the Chief Technology Officer of Runway Management Corp., overseeing the intellectual property, product development, and executive management of the Runway Healthcare, LP portfolio companies.

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Jeffrey F. O’Donnell, Jr.

General Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Portfolio Companies

Jeffrey O’Donnell Jr. is a healthcare entrepreneur who has been creating and growing innovative MedTech companies for over ten years. He has a diverse and extensive background in sales, marketing, product development, and executive leadership.

Currently, he serves as the CEO of Runway Healthcare’s portfolio companies, which include Waypoint Orthopedics, Toetal Solutions, and Pace Surgical. He is the co-founder of Toetal Solutions and Pace Surgical. In addition to his role as CEO, he is a General Partner of Runway Healthcare, LP, a MedTech Venture Studio that merges capital and management to bring commercially ready opportunities to existing strategic organizations.

Jeffrey is also a General Partner at MAST Labs, LLC, the premier surgical training company in the mid-Atlantic region, with locations in Philadelphia, PA, Bethesda, MD, and Richmond, VA.

Jeffrey was named one of the top 100 CEOs in Philadelphia by Titan 100 in 2023.

In these roles, he leverages his expertise and passion to address unmet needs in the medical field and to support the growth and innovation of the MedTech ecosystem. He is a proud graduate of the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

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William John Odenthal

General Partner

William Odenthal has over 37 years of capital markets and equities banking experience. In addition to his role as General Partner at Runway Healthcare, he currently is Principal and Head of Investment Banking for Alere Financial Partners, LLC., exploring innovative, small-capitalization public corporations, primarily in the biomedical sector; providing comprehensive banking and advisory initiatives.

In June of 2013, William founded Alere Financial Partners, LLC., as a division of Summer Street Research Partners. During his tenure at Summer Street, he served as Director of Investment Banking, managing all aspects of equities banking deals for Alere Financial Partners, LLC. Over his eighteen-month tenure at Summer Street, William oversaw and was the lead investment banker on over 40mm dollars of unregistered security placements to institutional investors.

Prior to Summer Street Research Partners, William instituted the advisory business at The Benchmark Company. As a leader of Capital Markets at Benchmark from March of 2007 until June 2013, he orchestrated dozens of non-deal roadshows and attended multiple investment conferences.

Additionally, William served as a Principal and Chief Operating Officer of Weatherly Securities for over five years supervising over 160 employees in three branch offices. Over his tenure at Weatherly, he was the President and Chief Operating Officer and acted as a principal of the firm.

Principal/Supervisory Exams

General Securities Principal Examination – Series 24
General Securities Representative Examination – Series 7
Uniform Securities Agent State Law Examination – Series 63
Investment Banking Representative Qualification Examination – Series 79

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Andy Iott

Venture Partner

Mr. Iott brings over twenty years of experience in medical device product development and commercialization, with extensive knowledge of the spine market. As a co-founder of Globus Medical, Mr. Iott played a critical role in taking the company from a startup to a worldwide leader in orthopedics. Mr Iott also serves as CEO of HAPPE Spine and sits on various boards in the medical device space.

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Craig Carra

Finance and Accounting Advisor

Craig started his career as an auditor for Pricewaterhouse Coopers, followed by 25+ years in the medical device industry.  Craig has held executive roles leading finance, operations, and business development for two NASDAQ listed companies and three venture backed companies.  Over the course of his career, Craig has helped his companies raise nearly $200M in capital to develop products, drive revenue and infrastructure growth, and lead M&A activities. Craig has a BS in Accounting from Saint Joseph’s University and an Executive MBA from Villanova University.  He holds an active CPA license and was recently announced as a “Titan 100”, recognizing the top 100 C-Suite executives in the Philadelphia region, as well as CFO of the Year by Philadelphia Business Journal

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Donald Foley

Venture Partner
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Kevin Cody

Venture Partner

Kevin Cody brings over 20 years of financial markets experience to the team. In the early stages of his career, Mr. Cody worked on equity structured products sales for institutional clients in the Tokyo and Hong Kong equity markets. More recently, Kevin brought that institutional experience to build an alternative investment platform for high net worth and family office investors with Alere Financial Partners a Division of COVA Capital Partners LLC. Over the past 5 years, he has narrowed his focus on medical technology companies that require purposeful funding. The collaborative effort of the Alere Financial Alternative Investment Platform and Runway Healthcare will provide funding and development for early stage med-tech ideas and opportunities that reduce timing and cost for physicians while improving patient outcomes.

FINRA Registered Representative

General Securities Representative Examination – Series 7
Uniform Securities Agent State Law Examination – Series 63

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Nicholas Pachuda, DPM

Venture Partner

Dr. Nicholas Pachuda serves as the Chief Operating Officer at Peptilogics and has approximately 30 years of clinical and industry experience in Life Sciences including Orthopedics, Medtech, and Biotech.  He is a board member and advisor to several startups.  He served in senior roles in R&D, clinical, innovation, BD, and commercial P&L leadership. He was involved with several successful startups, midcaps, and multinationals, including 10 years at Johnson & Johnson where he led External Innovation.  He cofounded the extremities business at Arthrex and led BD and New Ventures for Synthes.  He was trained as a Foot and Ankle Surgeon and completed an International Orthopedic Trauma Fellowship.

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Samuel Navarro

Venture Partner

Sam is the managing partner and founder of Gravitas Healthcare, LLC, an advisory firm entirely focused on the emerging medical technology industry, with transactions ranging from mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships and investments with the leading corporate consolidators in the industry.

 

Sam spent over two decades in Wall Street with finance, investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, equity research and investment management experience in the medical device industry. Prior to Gravitas, Sam was Managing Director and led, at Cowen & Co., a team of senior people, their medical technology investment banking practice, responsible for building the franchise across all product categories, including M&A / Advisory, financing services and products. Before joining Cowen & Co., Sam spent over four years at The Galleon Group running the Galleon Healthcare Fund as a Senior Portfolio Manager. While at Galleon, he was responsible for all health care investments across all sectors, such as pharmaceuticals / biotechnology, medical technology / hospital supplies, and all areas of healthcare services. Prior to Galleon, Sam was Global Head of Healthcare Investment Banking at ING Barings and prior to that, Senior Medical Technology Analyst and Head of Healthcare Equity Research at UBS. Mr. Navarro also held Senior Medical Technology equity research positions at Furman Selz Inc. and Needham & Company. Sam has also served or serves on the boards of Palette Life Sciences (acquired by Teleflex), PECA Labs, Accure Acne, Derma Sciences (acquired by Integra Lifesciences), Dextera Surgical (acquired by B. Braun Aesculap), MicroTherapeutics (acquired by EV3), Jomed, BioSig Technologies, Strata Skin Sciences, Pixelux Entertainment and others. Sam also serves on the Board of Trustees of Stonehill College.

 

Sam received his MBA in Finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, A Master of Science in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

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Waypoint Orthopedics

Market
Spine
Founded
2020
Management Team

Jeff O’Donnell, Jr. – President & CEO

Stephen P. Banco, MD – CMO & Co-Founder

Bill Rhoda – CTO

Tiffini Wittwer – SVP of QA/RA

Kaileen Osisek – Product Manager

Michael Harper – Sr. R&D Engineer

Board of Directors

Jeff O’Donnell, Sr. – Executive Chairman

William Odenthal – Director

Stephen P. Banco, MD – Director

William Rhoda – Director

Jeff O’Donnell, Jr. – Director

Andy Iott – Director

Website
https://waypointorthopedics.com
Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Stephen P Banco, MD

Dr. Andy Cappuccino, MD

Dr. John Jacquemin, MD

 

Waypoint Orthopedics Whitepaper:

Waypoint GPS White Paper

 

 

Waypoint has set out on a mission to make vertebral fixation safer and more efficient for the patient, the surgeon, and supporting staff in the operating room. With Waypoints GPS Guided Pedicle System, our goal is to enable physicians with real-time information in order to increase their confidence and reduce radiation exposure for all.

The Waypoint GPS uses proprietary color sensing technology which provides the physician with the information needed to determine the difference from cancellous and cortical bone, preventing cortical breaches. The Waypoint GPS looks and feels like a standard re-usable pedicle probe and requires little change technique. It simply enhances the surgeons experience through the use of this smart, disposable instrument.

 

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Toetal Solutions

Market
Extremities
Founded
2021
Management Team

Jeff O’Donnell, Jr. – CEO & Co-Founder

William Rhoda – President, CTO, &  Co-Founder

Kaileen Osisek – Project Manager

Michael Harper – Sr. R&D Engineer

Board of Directors

Jeff O’Donnell, Sr. – Executive Chairman

William Odenthal – Director

William Rhoda – Director

Nick Pachuda – Director

Jeff O’Donnell, Jr. – Director

Scientific Advisory Board

Steven Soondar, DPM

Nicholas Romansky, DPM

 

Toetal Solutions was founded with the purpose of designing and launching easy-to-use and clinically effective solutions in foot and ankle deformities. Toetal’s flagship product, the Ziptoe™ provides surgeons with a simple and effective way to repair hammertoes confidently. The Ziptoe™ provides active compression of the PIP joint, while preventing rotation. The Ziptoe™ comes with a fully disposable instrumentation kit that enables a cost-effective solution without any compromise.

 

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Pace Surgical

Market
Extremities
Founded
2023
Management Team

Jeff O’Donnell, Jr. – CEO & Co-Founder

William Rhoda – CTO & Co-Founder

Kaileen Osisek – Project Manager

Michael Harper – Sr. R&D Engineer

Board of Directors

Jeff O’Donnell, Sr. – Executive Chairman

William Odenthal – Director

William Rhoda – Director

Nick Pachuda – Director

Mike West – Director

Jeff O’Donnell, Jr. – Director

Website
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pace-surgical
Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Jim Krieg, MD

Dr. Lew Schon, MD

Dr. Greg Guyton, MD

Dr. Nick Romansky, DPM

Dr. Stephen Soondar, DPM

Pace Surgical, a Runway Healthcare company, was founded to create anatomically correct foot and ankle trauma products designed for and by surgeons.