What happens when a college student looks at a decades-old surgical tool and asks a simple question: why hasn’t anyone made this safer? 

In this episode of Entrepreneur Rx, host John Shufeldt reconnects with Casey Qadir, Co-founder and CEO of Hubly Surgical, several years after her first appearance to talk about how far the company has come, from an undergraduate idea to FDA-cleared technology being used in hospitals across the country. 

Casey started Hubly while studying neuroscience at Northwestern University after learning that emergency cranial access still relied on hand-crank drills without automatic stopping technology. Working with neurosurgeon Dr. Amit Ayer and CTO Tyler Panian, she co-developed the Hubly Auto-Stop Drill, designed to automatically stop after penetrating bone and help protect the brain beneath it. 

John and Casey revisit one of their earliest meetings, when John put his hand beneath a demonstration skull and drilled through it to see whether Hubly’s technology would stop. It did, helping turn a pitch meeting into an investment. 

Since then, Hubly has moved from early development to commercialization while expanding beyond cranial access. Casey shares how feedback from neurosurgeon customers led the company into spine surgery, resulting in FDA clearance for laminectomy and laminotomy procedures, and why clinician feedback continues to shape what comes next. 

The conversation also gets into the realities of building a medical device company: raising the first million dollars during COVID, finding physician champions, selling into hospitals, challenging the status quo, and staying confident when investors insist that if an idea were really that obvious, someone else would have done it already. Casey also shares what she has learned about balancing conviction with humility. 

About Casey Qadir: Casey Qadir is the Co-founder, CEO, and co-inventor behind Hubly Surgical. She started Hubly while studying neuroscience at Northwestern University and has since led the company from a classroom concept through two FDA clearances, nationwide commercialization, and use in thousands of patients across the United States. Casey holds a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in computational mathematics from Johns Hopkins University. She was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list for 2026 and serves as an entrepreneur-in-residence and advisory board member at Northwestern’s Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. 

About Hubly Surgical: Hubly Surgical is a medical device company committed to making surgery safe. Its flagship product, the single-use, cordless Hubly Auto-Stop Drill, combines automatic breakthrough detection, mechanical plunge prevention, and real-time force indication to give clinicians greater control during high-stakes procedures. Initially developed for cranial access in the Neuro ICU, the platform now has FDA-cleared applications in both cranial access and spinal decompression procedures, including laminectomy and laminotomy. Since its commercial launch in 2024, Hubly Drills have been used to save thousands of patient lives nationwide. 

About Xcellerant Ventures: Xcellerant Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in innovative companies across healthcare, technology, defense, and other emerging industries.  Xcellerant partners with founders to provide capital, strategic guidance, and support as they build and scale their companies.  Learn about their newest fund, Jetstream Venture Fund, and its $5,000 minimum.

About Deal Titan: Deal Titan is an AI-powered platform that helps investors evaluate early-stage companies faster by turning pitch decks into structured diligence reports covering the market, team, financials, competition, and key risks. Use code EntrepreneurRx for a free solo membership, including 10 full analysis reports. 

What happens when life-changing therapies cost millions of dollars, but the healthcare system was never built to manage them?

In this episode of Entrepreneur Rx, host John Shufeldt sits down with Annie Collins, Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Aradigm, to discuss her journey from healthcare consulting and venture capital to building a company tackling one of the most complicated challenges in modern medicine.

Annie shares how her early interest in medicine led her from pre-med studies to Bain & Company and eventually to Andreessen Horowitz, where she invested in early-stage healthcare and life science companies. While at a16z, she became increasingly focused on the disconnect between groundbreaking therapies and the healthcare system’s ability to sustainably pay for and deliver them. Eventually, Annie and her co-founders stopped looking for a company solving the problem and decided to build one themselves.

The conversation explores the complex world of cell and gene therapies, where a single treatment can cost hundreds of thousands to more than $4 million. Annie explains how Aradigm works across payers, providers, manufacturers, and patients to create a more predictable and sustainable model while helping patients navigate an incredibly complicated treatment journey.

John and Annie also discuss what it was like to leave one of the world’s leading venture capital firms to become a founder, why entrepreneurship turned out to be even harder than she expected, and what she has learned moving from evaluating companies to actually building one. They also talk about persistence in venture capital, female founders and leadership, and why having other founders and mentors to lean on matters when the startup journey gets lonely.

About Annie Collins: Annie Collins is a Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Aradigm, where she oversees launches of new programs, the success of existing customers, and operational execution of Aradigm's program. She began her career at Bain & Company as a strategy consultant for large healthcare and life science companies before joining Andreessen Horowitz as an investment partner focused on early-stage healthcare and life science companies. While there, she was introduced to the commercial complexities posed by high-cost drugs like cell and gene therapies and the largely unsolved challenge of managing those therapies on the medical benefit. That experience ultimately led her and Will Shrank to leave a16z and start Aradigm alongside Spencer Carrucciu.

About Aradigm: Aradigm is an incentive-aligned, cost-plus platform managing the financial and clinical complexities of cell and gene therapies (CGTs). Our mission is to create sustainable, affordable access to life-saving medicines through a novel financial and delivery model that brings together every stakeholder — payers, providers, manufacturers, and, most importantly, patients.

About Xcellerant Ventures: Xcellerant Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in innovative companies across healthcare, technology, defense, and other emerging industries. Through multiple funds and investment vehicles, including the Jetstream Venture Fund, Xcellerant partners with visionary founders, provides strategic guidance, and helps connect investors with opportunities in the private markets.

About Deal Titan:  This week's episode is brought to you by Deal Titan. Deal Titan is an AI-powered platform that helps investors evaluate early-stage companies faster by turning pitch decks into structured diligence reports covering the market, team, financials, competition, and key risks. Use code EntrepreneurRx for a free solo membership, including 10 full analysis reports.