Massi Joe E. Kiani (born February 22, 1965) is an Iranian-born American entrepreneur who founded medical technology company Masimo in 1989 as a private company to improve the accuracy of noninvasive patient monitoring.
Under Kiani’s leadership, Masimo has grown from a “garage start up” into a successful publicly-traded medical technology company employing approximately 2,000 people worldwide with annual sales growth of nearly 25-fold in the last five years. In addition, with technology license and OEM agreements with leading patient monitoring manufacturers spanning the globe—such as Atom, Datascope, GE Medical, Medtronic, Philips, Spacelabs and Zoll, among others—Masimo is the inventor and market leader in measure-through motion and low perfusion pulse oximetry and Pulse CO-Oximetry technologies.
Biography
Early Life and Education
Joe Kiani was born in Shiraz, Iran and emigrated to the United States at the age of nine, settling with his family in Alabama. Kiani's father was an engineer and his mother a nurse. Despite not being fluent in English when he arrived in the United States, Kiani graduated from high school at the age of 15, and by the time he was 22 had both his bachelor's (B.S.E.E) and master's (M.S.E.E) degrees in electrical engineering from San Diego State University. In 2005, Kiani was awarded the Monty Distinguished Alumni Award by SDSU.
Solving the Unsolvable
Early in his career, Kiani became convinced that the use of adaptive signal processing in the measurement of physiological parameters could solve the problems of motion artifact and low signal to noise problems, which had plagued invivo monitoring and especially pulse oximetry. Enlisting the help of his friend and fellow engineer Mohamed Diab, Kiani set out to "solve the unsolvable" challenge of developing a pulse oximetry technology that would provide accurate, reliable measurements during periods of patient motion and low peripheral perfusion. Together, working out of their garages and spare bedrooms, they solved the problem, and Masimo was born. Kiani and Diab initially operated the company out of Kiani's condo in Mission Viejo, California.
Numerous clinical studies have shown that the technology they developed, known as Masimo SET, increases pulse oximetry's ability to detect life-threatening events. The company is recognized as one of the most innovative companies in the medical device industry.
Masimo Today
Today, Masimo is responsible for the development of innovative and award-winning noninvasive monitoring technologies that have revolutionized noninvasive blood constituent monitoring not once, but twice. In 1995, the company debuted measure-through motion and low perfusion pulse oximetry, known as Masimo SET, and with it virtually eliminated false alarms while increasing pulse oximetry's ability to detect life-threatening events. In 2005, Masimo introduced Masimo Rainbow SET Pulse CO-Oximetry, a breakthrough new noninvasive blood constituent monitoring platform that can measure many individual components of human blood that previously required invasive procedures. To date, Masimo has released parameters that include total hemoglobin (SpHb), oxygen content (SpOC), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO), methemoglobin (SpMet), PVI, oxyhemoglobin (SpO 2 ), perfusion index and pulse rate—allowing early detection and treatment of potentially life-threatening conditions. Kiani has more than 50 patents in this field.
Fighting the Giants
Under Kiani's leadership, Masimo won one of the largest patent infringement lawsuits of the decade when it sued the Nellcor division of much larger Tyco Healthcare (now known as Covidien) for willfully infringing on its patents for Measure-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry and received more than $300 million in damages when the suit was settled in 2006.
In addition, Kiani and Masimo took on Tyco’s monopolistic tactics by filing a 2004 lawsuit against the company claiming it violated the antitrust laws through anti-competitive business practices specifically related to the sale of its Nellcor pulse oximetry products. After a lengthy trial in 2005, a Federal jury found that Tyco/Nellcor had unlawfully maintained monopoly power, and that Nellcor's sole-source agreements, bundling of unrelated products, market-share based compliance pricing contracts and co-marketing agreements with original equipment manufacturers were unlawful restraints of trade and exclusionary dealing arrangements. The jury awarded Masimo $140 million in damages. A subsequent proceeding on the damages resulted in an adjustment of that amount, and the award is pending appeal.
In commenting on the antitrust lawsuit at the time, Kiani said "My hope is that this verdict will do more than simply open competition in the pulse oximetry market, but also send a strong message that medical product sale and purchases should be based on each individual product's ability to help clinicians improve patient care. We hope this verdict will benefit patients and our nation's healthcare system by fostering vigorous competition, thereby promoting innovative, cost-effective technologies."
Kiani’s commitment to open access for innovation in the healthcare market was chronicled in a 2002 New York Times article series entitled “Medicine’s Middleman” in which the paper investigated the practices of Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) and dominant medical suppliers. As a result of this series, Masimo gained a national reputation as an innovative company with life saving products that hospitals couldn’t buy due to the relationships between the GPOs and the dominant vendors. One month after the first Times article appeared, and again in 2004, Kiani testified before The United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights regarding these practices and, after these hearings, most of the major GPOs created codes of conduct to attempt to reduce anticompetitive conduct by eliminating sole-source and bundling contracts for physician preference items.
Awards
Over the last 20 years, Kiani and Masimo have garnered more than 50 awards and industry honors, including the SCCM Technology Excellence Award. To date Kiani is the only recipient of this award to come from industry.
Other awards include:
• Frost & Sullivan North American Patient Monitoring CEO of the Year Award (2009)
• ACG Outstanding Growth Award (2008)
• AeA Outstanding Medical Device Company Award (2008)
• GHX Best-in-Class Award (2008 and 2009)
• ipIQ Patent Scorecard Ranks Masimo #1 in Industry Current Impact and Innovation Cycle Time (2008)
• FDNY Flag of Heroes (2008)
• Society for Technology in Anesthesia (STA) Excellence in Technology Innovation Award (2007, 1995), Application of Technology Award (2006)
• Frost & Sullivan Patient Monitoring Technology Leadership of the Year (2007, 2003) , Outstanding Company for Excellence in Healthcare Opportunities (2007), New Standard of Care in Patient Monitoring Award (2003), Product Quality Leadership Award (2002), Market Engineering Competitive Strategy Award (2000)
• American Electronics Association (AEA) High-Tech Award (2006), Innovative Product/Technology Award (2001) & Outstanding Medical Device Company Award (2000)
• Medical Design Excellence Award (2006, 2001)
• The Monty Distinguished Alumni Award from San Diego State University (2005)
• Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Platinum “Abby” Award for Innovations in Healthcare (2003)
• Forum for Corporate Directors of Orange County Director of the Year Award (2003)
• March of Dimes Excellence in Leadership Award (2001)
• Huntington Disease Society of America Distinguished Leadership Award (2001)
• Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) Technology Excellence Award (2000)
Personal life
Prior to founding Masimo Corporation, Kiani served as regional technical manager for Anthem Electronics, field applications engineer for Bell Industries, and product engineer for Unisys. Currently, Kiani serves as CEO and Chairman of Masimo Labs, is on the board of SABA, a publicly traded software company, and is Chairman of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA).
Kiani and his wife, Sarah, are raising two daughters and one son in Laguna Niguel, California.
External links
- Masimo Corporate Website
- Medical Device Manufacturer's Association
- Joe Kiani Featured in San Diego State University "In Touch"
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