The Agility Advantage: How Emerging Ecosystems Compete and Win

Smaller, emerging ecosystems have a unique edge: agility. While larger markets move slowly, regions like Buffalo and Cleveland are proving that strategic partnerships and nimble collaboration can accelerate biotech innovation—especially in the medical device sector. In this session, Mike Springer and Duane will share how their regions are harnessing flexibility, efficiency, and creative growth strategies to compete on a national scale, while offering lessons our region can use to strengthen connections, avoid pitfalls, and expand our collective impact.

Michael Springer is a medtech innovation and culture-driven executive who has spent his career connecting bold ideas to scalable execution. He’s led teams across global medtech manufacturing, driven operational excellence in Amazon’s same-day delivery network, and spent a decade helping transform The Jacobs Institute in Buffalo into a nationally recognized hub for medical device startups and clinical innovation.

Most recently, Michael has advised large contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) on how to increase their value proposition by moving upstream— into early innovation, digital transformation, and strategic partnerships that position them closer to their customers’ breakthrough technologies. Today, Michael is a partner at NeuFluent, a venture studio partnering with leading innovators to accelerate breakthrough neurological technologies from concept to market — a model designed to align impact and outcomes in a true win-win approach for startups, strategics, and patients alike. NeuFluent is a venture studio focused on neuroscience innovation, developing novel components, systems, and processes for highly reliable interconnectivity that streams data to digitally native processing and communication platforms. Its mission is to reshape the neurological landscape by providing novel treatment solutions for the mind, brain, and spine. Michael has held leadership roles at bioMérieux, Amazon, and The Jacobs Institute.

He holds a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Rochester and executive education from Stanford GSB.  Michael lives in Orchard Park, NY with his wife Renée and their five children.

Duane Mancini is the Chief Executive Office and Founder at Project Medtech.  He has more than 15 years of experience in go-to-market strategy including regulatory & reimbursement, biocompatibility, pre-clinical efficacy testing, and clinical trial design & execution.

With all the complexities of running a Medtech company and taking a product to the market, Duane partners with start-ups to develop strategies and milestones. He evaluates how their early decisions in various aspects of the company may impact other aspects in the future. He supports in creating the blueprint to build and grow companies.

He obtained his Master of Science in Medicinal Chemistry degree and enjoys the innovative science that goes into every company. He is proud to be a “nerd” of the Medtech industry. This is demonstrated by hosting the podcast called “Project Medtech.”