The Campbell, California lab that treats company-building like a repeatable science - and keeps producing acquired medical device startups.
Cardiovascular · Electrophysiology · Ophthalmology
Here is a slightly strange business. Most startups are one idea attached to one company: you have the idea, you raise money, the company either becomes the idea or it dies. Shifamed inverts that arrangement. It is not one company built around one idea. It is a workshop in Campbell, California that generates ideas, wraps a company around each one, raises money, and then - this is the important part - sells the company to whoever needs it. And then does it again.
The technical term for this is "incubator" or, if you want to sound like you read a lot of pitch decks, "venture builder." The practical version is that Shifamed keeps engineers, industrial designers, and prototyping equipment on hand, points them at an unmet clinical need, and turns the result into a standalone startup. Founded in 2009 by Amr Salahieh, a medical device entrepreneur with more than 30 years in the field and his name on over 400 patents, the shop has run this loop enough times that the loop itself is the product.
The loop works because medical devices are hard in a specific, expensive way. The technology is difficult, but the real cost is risk: years of development, regulatory scrutiny, and the possibility that the thing simply does not work in a human body. Shifamed's answer is to concentrate the risk-reduction. Ten or so companies share the same institutional scar tissue - the same regulatory lessons, the same design discipline, the same patient capital - so that no single founder has to learn all of it from zero.
You can measure whether this works by looking at who ends up buying the output. The legacy list reads like a shopping list for the big device makers: Sadra Medical and Apama Medical went to Boston Scientific, Maya Medical to Covidien, Kalila Medical to Abbott, NuVera Medical to Johnson & Johnson's Biosense Webster. Each one solved a specific, unglamorous clinical problem that an incumbent decided it would rather buy than build.
What is unusual is not any single exit - plenty of medtech startups get acquired - but the repeatability. A company that sells one heart-adjacent device to Boston Scientific has gotten lucky or been clever once. A shop that keeps doing it, across cardiology and electrophysiology and now ophthalmology, is doing something more like a process. That is the claim Shifamed is quietly making, and 15 years of exits is the evidence.
The current portfolio keeps the pattern going. Supira Medical is building a next-generation heart pump for patients in cardiogenic shock and has an FDA Breakthrough Device Designation. Atia Vision received FDA clearance in 2025 to begin US trials of the OmniVu, a lens that aims to restore the eye's natural focusing after cataract surgery. Akura Medical is going after blood clots; Laza Medical is building AI- and robotics-enabled cardiac imaging. Different organs, same machine.
Next-generation percutaneous heart pump (pVAD) for high-risk patients and cardiogenic shock. FDA Breakthrough Device Designation.
OmniVu dual-optic accommodating intraocular lens; cleared by the FDA to begin US clinical trials in 2025.
A differentiated approach to treating venous thromboembolism (VTE) and blood clots.
AI- and robotics-enabled imaging built for cardiac interventions in the cath lab.
Solutions aimed at atrial fibrillation and structural heart challenges.
Cardiac device development within the Shifamed portfolio.
Early-stage medical device innovation incubated in-house.
Acquired by Boston Scientific, Covidien, Abbott, and J&J's Biosense Webster.
Founder and CEO, and the constant across every Shifamed spinout. Salahieh has spent more than 30 years in medical devices and is named as inventor or co-inventor on over 400 issued and pending patents worldwide. Before Shifamed he held leadership roles in a run of acquired companies - Embolic Protection (Boston Scientific, 2001), Sadra Medical (Boston Scientific, 2011), and others - which is roughly the resume you would design if you wanted to argue that building device companies can be a repeatable craft rather than a one-time bet.
Amr Salahieh launches the incubator in Silicon Valley.
Legacy company acquired by Boston Scientific.
Acquired by Covidien.
Acquired by Abbott.
Completed acquisition by Boston Scientific.
$15.5M Series A announced; Supira Medical begins developing its pVAD.
NuVera Medical acquired by J&J's Biosense Webster; Shifamed raises its Series B.
Supira gains FDA Breakthrough status and $40M Series D; Laza closes $36M Series A.
Atia Vision cleared by the FDA to begin its US clinical study.
Searches to find interviews with Amr Salahieh and product demos from Shifamed portfolio companies:
▶ Amr Salahieh interviews on YouTubeIt is a medical technology incubator that builds device companies from concept to commercial launch using in-house engineering, human-centered design, and R&D facilities.
Serial medical device entrepreneur Amr Salahieh founded it in 2009. He has 30+ years in the field and is named on 400+ patents.
590 Division Street, Campbell, California, in Silicon Valley.
Current: Supira, Atia Vision, Akura, Laza, Adona, Myra Vision, Tioga, and Enlil. Legacy exits include Sadra, Maya, Kalila, Apama, and NuVera.
Rather than investing in outside startups, Shifamed builds companies itself - developing the technology and IP in-house before spinning out independent companies that raise their own financing.