{"id":2558,"date":"2016-07-01T17:32:09","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T17:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=2558"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:56:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:56:46","slug":"jim-dreher-85-a-singular-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2016\/07\/01\/jim-dreher-85-a-singular-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Dreher \u201985: A Singular Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the pulse-pounding race to make and bring to market medical devices in a dynamic healthcare market, entrepreneur Jim Dreher \u201985 relies on a reliable \u201csniffer,\u201d a great work ethic, and a team he trusts to create \u201cfirst class solutions to really good problems.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Dash\u2026\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

by Richard Paige<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a rainy Southern California afternoon, Jim Dreher cuts through the Westwood traffic in his Mercedes G-Class SUV on his way to meet with a doctor at the UCLA Medical Center. His eyes dart between his passenger and the road as he offers up a brutally honest assessment of what it\u2019s like to be a medical technology entrepreneur.<\/p>\n

Between talk of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals, $5-, $10-, and $20-million outlays, business models, and ethics, I realize this drive mirrors his mission: He\u2019s looking for space. The space where the right opportunity lies. The space down the road.<\/p>\n

Dreher is looking ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have issues judging the market where they are today,\u201d he says, \u201cbut you have to judge it by where you will be when you seek FDA approval. You have to make decisions based on three to five years down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

The founder and managing partner of medical device incubator Option3, Dreher focuses his attention these days on fast-to-market technologies in neurointervention and catheters to access the brain. But during the past 15 years he has founded a number of highly valued start-ups and helped invent and take to market several award-winning devices that improve patients\u2019 recovery and quality of life. He also serves as industry mentor and advisor to this afternoon\u2019s destination, UCLA\u2019s MedTech Innovations Program.<\/p>\n

Dreher meets with doctors because he wants to know where the problems are. He\u2019s a problem guy, and a good device is designed to solve a problem.
\n\"jim
\n\u201cIt can\u2019t be the other way around,\u201d he insists. \u201cYou don\u2019t want a solution in search of problem. You understand?<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding the right problem to go after is really where the secret sauce is. I am not an outsource manufacturer, nor do I want to be. I want to take the risk of going after an interesting problem, and if I end up with a game-changing solution, then I am rewarded for that effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy world is kind of like playing calculated roulette\u2014the potential for a significant multiple is there if you land on the right spot at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dreher\u2019s drive to find a solution and his ability to \u201csniff out\u201d opportunities make his approach unique. He\u2019s always searching the space.<\/p>\n

\"Jemima
Option3 venture associate Jemima Escamilla<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHe has a really good eye and gut feeling for a good business opportunity,\u201d says Jemima Escamilla, an Option3 venture associate who was recruited from the UCLA program he advises. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned from him is the space. He finds those diamonds in the rough.\u201d<\/p>\n

STEM Entrepreneur and former Covidien President Stacey Enxing Seng agrees that seeing the space is key.<\/p>\n

\u201cJim has a special brand of enthusiasm and ability to really understand the technology because of his own intellect, and he dedicates time and energy with physicians and others in the field to really learn the ins and outs of the space,\u201d she says. \u201cHe is relentless with the questions and understanding what the real issues are to performance, adoption, and approval of a technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The approach has served him well. Of his 10 ventures, nine have been successful, with one selling in 2012 to Teleflex and another in 2014 to Cardinal Health, and both for handsome profits.<\/p>\n

When Dreher senses a problem worth solving, he has a top-notch engineering and research team to work up a solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI surround myself with amazing people,\u201d he says, \u201cWe\u2019re basically a consortium of independent contractors. We\u2019re partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am and will always be the dumbest guy in the group. They\u2019re brilliant, but they want a guy who is charging ahead and goes in with his guns blazing. I\u2019m okay being that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has the confidence to let his team run with ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey come up with a lot of first-class solutions, because we don\u2019t put blinders on ourselves. I don\u2019t want preconceived ideas. Give me a problem, a really good problem, and if I let my guys run, I know they will solve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dreher\u2019s confidence helps inspire his team, an essential factor in his medtech success rate.<\/p>\n

\"stacy1\"
STEM Entrepreneur and former Covidien President Stacey Enxing Seng was the keynote speaker at this year’s Wabash Entrepreneurship Summit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe people on both sides of the table\u2014the builders and the investors\u2014 are nearly as important as the relevance of the technology or the end product,\u201d says Enxing Seng. \u201cJim\u2019s work implies a high level of trust and transparency, integrity and work ethic, and when you have experienced these qualities in people, the loyalty comes because you want to work with them again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dreher and the doctor talk for more than an hour at a picnic table outside UCLA\u2019s Ronald Reagan Medical Center, then we head for the Option3 office on Wilshire Boulevard.\u00a0It\u2019s wood and plaster unpretentious: One large room with a couple computers and a small conference room in a space shared with an accounting firm. Escamilla\u2019s small dog greets us at the top of the stairs.<\/p>\n

Wearing a pair of faded jeans, a nondescript green button-down shirt over a gray T-shirt and a well-worn pair of Salomon shoes, Dreher introduces me to his associate and the folks in the accounting firm. The intensity of the drive eases into friendly banter as he reminds others of upcoming meetings and gets an update on research. They\u2019ve got some catching up to do\u2014 Dreher spends most of his time on the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, what you see is what you get with him,\u201d Escamilla says. \u201cThis is what he\u2019s like all the time\u2026really high energy and always very excited about finding the next opportunity. We\u2019ve got a million things going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we finish the interview for this story in the conference room, Dreher finds a bottle of wine and begins telling stories, a couple serious, a couple hilarious. The accounting staff borrows a corkscrew from the neighboring P.F. Chang\u2019s and scrounges up some snacks.<\/p>\n

Dreher says he surrounds himself with good energy. His company names all have meaningful connections. His brother Scott\u2019s son, Robbie, was an English Premier League soccer fan, and after Robbie\u2019s death Jim named one of his ventures HotSpur Technologies after his favorite club.<\/p>\n

Atsina Surgical was named after an Indian tribe located not far from Option3\u2019s base in Jackson Hole, WY, while the Qu’Appelle River was the inspiration behind a neurological technologies venture because \u201cit\u2019s sometimes straight, sometimes torturous, just like most neurological technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

He claims not to be superstitious, but the entrepreneur is not about to change procedure: \u201cI believe naming a company is important. I like those regions. I dig nature and energy and things associated with loved ones. There must be something in the water because it\u2019s working for us, and I don\u2019t want to change things.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Dash greets his dad at the office.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dreher\u2019s son, Dash\u2014named after author Dashiell Hammett\u2014rushes into the room and hugs his dad. It\u2019s obvious he has the run of the place. It\u2019s also obvious Dreher gets a lot of his own energy from the eight-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should know he is the real CEO of Option3,\u201d Dreher told me earlier. \u201cHis schedule and what he wants to do define what I\u2019m doing. He\u2019s an inspiration. He\u2019s very aware\u2014 he knows we work on new inventions and that we\u2019re helping people. He sits in on some meetings, meets some of the UCLA kids that come over, some of my engineers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s part of Dash\u2019s education, Dreher says, and dovetails with his own philosophy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are what you eat. If you hang around smart people, it’s gonna rub off. So he\u2019s exposed to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiles as he recalls a recent meeting Dash sat in on with Indiana Biosciences Institute CEO Dave Broecker \u201983.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell Dash that not only is Broecker an inventor, but he\u2019s the greatest quarterback who ever graced the halls of Wabash. Dave shares with him the patterns and the plays\u2014Dash is overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s after 5 p.m. when we wrap things up\u2014 Dreher calls an Uber for me, prepays it, tip included, and thanks me for coming. Then he turns back to the office and Dash, and the only space left to find after days on the road is the one he\u2019s been looking forward to all day\u2014 home, a pizza, and a father-son movie night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dreherLittle Bit of a Wild Card<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Dreher worked at Johnson & Johnson and others for more than a decade before stepping out on his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d reached some ceilings as to how far I was going to go,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a little bit of a wild card. A little bit of a rebel.\u201d<\/p>\n

He laughs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat only goes so far in a large corporation.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Stanford cardiac surgeon brought Dreher into his start-up, and he\u2019s never looked back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was a natural fit, though not without its ups and downs. It\u2019s like a hockey game without referees. In the big companies, you\u2019ve got referees. But here it\u2019s like you\u2019re refereeing yourself. Everyone is refereeing themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t about money. I wanted to impact the direction of a business. To know if I make a decision, is it a stupid one, or a good one. It was about whether or not I had good thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

The \u201cR\u201d Word\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In a half-hour conversation about what students need to be entrepreneurs, Jim Dreher uses the word \u201cresilience\u201d more often than a Bren\u00e9 Brown TED talk.<\/p>\n

He says you earn that at Wabash and the business world.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything I\u2019ve been a part of has demanded resilience and patience,\u201d he says. \u201cPride-swallowing experiences, if you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWabash is not an easy school\u2014not just academically difficult, but the environment is difficult. We have no outlet here as men than to give each other shit, right? You have to push back here. You can\u2019t hide here. You have to have the integrity to deal with it. I think that makes for a very resilient graduate when you get through.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the pulse-pounding race to make and bring to market medical devices in a dynamic healthcare market, entrepreneur Jim Dreher \u201985 relies on a reliable \u201csniffer,\u201d a great work ethic, and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":2559,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-notes"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2016\/07\/vision-online-one-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2558"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2571,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions\/2571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}