The Luna Labs Innovation Alliance Speaker Series hosts successful entrepreneurs to share their insights with our team. In this session, our Chief Commercialization Officer, Drake Goolsby, hosted Neal Piper, CEO of Luminoah, to talk about building a medical device company from a deeply personal experience.
When a child faces a rare tumor diagnosis, most parents focus on medical treatment. Neal Piper saw a different challenge: outdated medical technology that kept their child tethered to an IV pole, unable to play freely during recovery.
Five years later, Neal’s company, Luminoah, is approaching FDA clearance for an enteral feeding system that modernizes a decades-old medical device. In our inaugural Innovation Alliance speaker session, Neal shared how his family’s experience transformed into medical innovation, offering crucial lessons for entrepreneurs on their own commercial paths.
Read the full Q&A to learn how Luminoah balances user needs with purchaser requirements, maintains team motivation, and plans to establish a new standard of care in enteral nutrition.
Takeaways
- Mission drives everything: Grounding your team in the ‘why’ sustains momentum.
- Iterate and adapt: Early in development, Luminoah quickly adapted design based on user feedback, cost analysis, and evolving needs. Staying flexible and open to change was key to refining the product and accelerating progress.
- Customer feedback is critical: The team talked to 50+ stakeholders before designing anything.
- Persistence pays off: “The worst they can say is no.”
- Leverage networks: Start local, but expand to find the appropriate capital and expertise.
Luminoah’s journey demonstrates how personal conviction, combined with rigorous market research and a mission-driven team, can overturn established conventions to bring truly innovative products to those who need them.
The Luna Labs Innovation Alliance Speaker Series continues quarterly, bringing entrepreneurs like Neal to share their experiences with our team. These conversations remind us that behind every successful innovation is a story of commitment to solving real problems.
Luna Labs is interested in partnerships and collaborative research and development. Reach out and let us know about your interests.
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