September 8, 2017
Tech innovators and entrepreneurs enter the digital health space because they seek work with a purpose.
Marie Johnson’s purpose found her in a most tragic way.
Johnson, CEO and founder of AUM Cardiovascular, lost her husband, Rob, to a heart attack. He was 41, fit, and had just cleared a nuclear cardiology stress test.
Prior to the tragedy, Johnson, then an engineer and 3M Fellow, worked to develop a computerized stethoscope. She used her husband as the subject in her study, enabling her to collect data of his heart.
The day after the funeral, Johnson sat down and began sifting through the data. “I just knew his death was not by accident,” she said. “I knew I had to do something about this horrible condition.”
This search for answers led to a journey that took her and her young family to across the country and globe and finally at the head of a digital start-up.
Johnson used her insights, data, and talents to create the CADence System, an FDA-approved non-invasive, radiation-free, handheld tool to assess the sounds associated with heart disease.
Now, the start-up faces the challenge of convincing physicians, clinical academies, and payers that CADence offers a faster, better, and cheaper way of identifying heart disease.
Marie Johnson
CEO & Founder
AUM Cardiovascular
Dr. Marie Johnson’s vision for the CADence, a revolutionary cardiovascular diagnostic test, landed her on the “Most Creative People in Business” list by Fast Company magazine in 2015. CADence is a handheld, noninvasive, fast, inexpensive test which has the potential to disrupt nuclear stress testing, a $10B industry.
CADence has launched at the perfect time, addressing affordability, appropriate use and point of care healthcare. Marie has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and is the inventor of the AUM Cardiovascular’s patented technology, as well as the founder of the company. Further, as founder, Marie has successfully raised over $10 million in angel investment from individual investors, small funds and physicians who see the ground-breaking nature of the CADence technology. She is a discerning CEO who has surrounded herself with a passionate, hard-working team. Trained by the highly respected Stanford Biodesign group she has an enviable network of thought leaders and mentors to navigate the ever-changing medical device and global healthcare industry. Before becoming CEO of AUM, Dr. Johnson designed and launched the University of Minnesota Medical Devices Innovation Fellowship program. She hails from Greenville, Ohio and spent 12 years as a manufacturing engineer manufacturing brakes and wheel spindle bearings for General Motors Corporation in Ohio and Michigan.
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