blood-pressure
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Casana
Casana is a Rochester, New York digital-health company that builds the Smart Seat (originally the Heart Seat), a toilet-seat replacement that passively measures vital signs - heart rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen, respiration rate and blood pressure insights - while a person simply sits, with no wearables, charging or behavior change required. Spun out of research done by founder Nicholas Conn during his PhD at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the company earned FDA 510(k) clearance in 2023 and launched a consumer version of the seat in July 2026.
Ray Liu
Ray Liu is the CEO and co-founder of Vena Vitals, an Irvine, California medtech startup building a soft, skin-like sticker that tracks blood pressure continuously, beat by beat, without cuffs or invasive arterial lines. A National Science Foundation fellow turned operator, Liu spent two decades inside GE Healthcare, Siemens, and Vizient, and racked up two health-tech exits before reuniting with a former Berkeley labmate, UC Irvine professor Michelle Khine, and PhD scientist Josh Kim to turn a material-science breakthrough into a clinical product. Backed by Y Combinator, MedTech Innovator, and EvoNexus, Vena Vitals has tested its sensor on 600-plus patients in operating rooms and is targeting FDA clearance in 2026.
David Hendren
David Hendren is the Chief Business Officer of QURA, Inc., a Massachusetts medical technology company building an implantable sensor that streams real-time blood-pressure data to patients and physicians. A lawyer by training who has spent more than 25 years working every side of the deal table - venture capitalist, entrepreneur, CEO, board chair, advisor and counsel - he co-founded QURA in 2013 alongside its CEO. He also runs the advisory firm Augmentum Advisors, mentors startups through MassChallenge, sits on a Massachusetts Life Sciences Center review board, and advises VIC Technology Ventures, focusing his career on financing and commercializing healthcare and biomedical innovation.
QURA, Inc.
QURA, Inc. is a preclinical medical-technology company in Massachusetts building a tiny implanted sensor that continuously measures blood pressure and wirelessly transmits medical-grade waveform data to patients and physicians in real time. Its QSmart platform - a vitamin-sized QSense implant paired with software and analytics - aims to replace the occasional cuff reading with always-on monitoring, targeting hypertension, the leading cardiovascular risk factor worldwide. The technology grew out of an earlier wireless implantable pressure sensor developed for glaucoma (intraocular pressure) monitoring.
William Hendren
William G. Hendren, MD, MBA is the co-founder and CEO of QURA, Inc., a Duxbury, Massachusetts medical technology company building the QSmart platform - an implantable biosensor roughly the size of a grain of rice that continuously measures and wirelessly transmits medical-grade blood pressure data in real time. A surgeon trained at Harvard, Mass General, Emory and the Cleveland Clinic, with an MBA and strategic healthcare consulting experience at PwC across the US, Middle East, China and the UK, Hendren is taking aim at hypertension, which he calls the single leading healthcare threat in the world.
Maayan Cohen
Maayan Cohen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hello Heart, a Menlo Park-based digital therapeutics company focused exclusively on cardiovascular health. A former Israeli tank platoon commander turned strategy consultant, she built Hello Heart from a 2013 startup into a platform covering 1.6+ million members across Fortune 500 employers, backed by $148.5M in funding from investors including Khosla Ventures, IVP, and Stripes. Named to CNBC Changemakers 2024 and Inc. Female Founders 500 in 2025, Cohen is recognized for her empathy-driven leadership style - including managing her company from Tel Aviv bomb shelters during the 2023 Israel-Hamas war while providing housing and support for both Israeli and Palestinian staff.