About Icarus Medical

Our Mission

Icarus’ mission is to apply advancements in digital technology to improve the quality of life for those suffering from joint pain.

More specifically…

Our mission is to improve people’s quality of life by reducing pain and improving mobility. We place the patient at the center of our business, and we do whatever is possible, and reasonable, in service of the patient. We push the boundaries of technology, and we innovate and build creatively beyond convention in all areas.

The result is best-in-class technology that produces a marked improvement in the activity, health, and quality of life of our customers suffering from joint pain.

Where We're Heading

Our Vision

We are a patient-centered company that:

Improves the quality of life through patient-first innovations, brought through the collaboration of the world’s best engineers and doctors.
Provides real outcomes to patients through data-driven innovation.
Has a good culture, offers stimulating, meaningful and rewarding work. We have the coolest job and get paid the most for it. Eventually.
Has created and grown a system (brand, team, force) that adds value to the world, not just financial. That is a platform to solve important medical problems. Not just the lucrative problems.
Strives for:
1. Idea meritocracy: remove ego and best ideas win
2. Open mindedness to new ideas and approaches
3. Radical truth and transparency
4. Accept we will make mistakes and we own up and immediately correct our actions.
Is the best place to work, where people understand the meaning and impact of their work, and this adds to their overall quality of life. Individuals’ strengths and passions to make an impact will have maximum alignment.

About Icarus Medical

Our Values

Be Entrepreneurial

Being entrepreneurial means identifying a need ( a problem ) before the problem is generally recognized as a problem and then delivering a solution to the problem. It is a state of mind, a lens through which the world is viewed. Be innovative and find a way to get past.

Make things happen

Related to being entrepreneurial, people who make things happen take personal responsibility for solving problems. They are bold and unafraid to make mistakes. Making things happen means making and learning from mistakes. Lean forward, think big, take action.

Close, close, close

Closing means constantly striving for clarity and understanding regarding the current state of a relationship and the next step in advancing the relationship with an individual or a group. Closing means never assuming that you know where you stand. Closing means taking personal responsibility for knowing where you stand.

Champion Diversity

It takes a village of differing and sometimes conflicting points of view to envision and produce excellent results. Diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, attitudes is an energy source that should be developed, harvested and constantly championed.

Grow Through Curiosity

Taking action in search of answers to questions produces intellectual and emotional growth.

Live Optimistically

The difference between the glass being half full and the glass being half empty is your expectation as to what will happen next. "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." – Mahatma Gandhi

Strive for Excellence

Mediocrity has no future. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr ... “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

Above and Beyond

Above and Beyond Treatment for Patients, Customers, Collaborators and Our Team

We embody “Unreasonable Hospitality” because we can. We give people the benefit of the doubt, and we are generous.

CEO and Founder

Dave's Story

My name is Dave Johnson, I'm the founder and patient zero at Icarus Medical. I started this company because I had a knee injury when I was 15. I was playing football and dislocated my knee. That created a cartilage defect behind my kneecap, which progressed and started to wear to bone-on-bone arthritis in my 20s, which is about 30 to 40 years earlier than most people get in the U.S. So, I realized there were not really any conservative ways to manage the type of knee osteoarthritis that I have, which is patellofemoral knee osteoarthritis, which affects about 80-90% of people who have knee osteoarthritis.

In my early 30s, I realized I pretty much needed a knee replacement. I had no cartilage left. There was no surgery that was going to be able to help my knee. That was sort of a partial or full joint replacement. The problem with that is that the more active you are, the faster you wear out a replacement, and there’s always the risk of complications. Around 20 percent of people who have it aren’t happy with it, it never feels right.

In talking to my surgeon, he explained that if I lost weight, I might actually have a lot less pain in my knee because forces multiply by about three to five times your body weight. And so I started thinking about that, and I thought, “You know, I may not be able to lose very much weight, but if I can get a knee brace that actually springs me back up and takes the weight off my knee, it might help me and allow me to stay active. I like skiing, snowboarding, wakeboarding, and these are things I really couldn't do.

So I bought a knee brace off of eBay, and put springs in it and made my own assistance-extension knee brace, and it actually worked really well. And I've been using this brace for years. And I did file a patent on it, fortunately. I had people asking me to make them knee braces, and every year I kept making a better one and a better one. And so I'd been thinking about this for years, and then I finally decided to build a company out of it, once I realized how many people would benefit from this and how prevalent this condition is. And it didn't seem like anybody was looking to innovate in this space.

Careers

Icarus Medical is an impact focused and dynamic bio-tech startup. Our technology bridges medical devices, software, and additive manufacturing to yield a new class of orthopedic bracing. Our company values creative thinking, risk taking, and collaboration. We bring together industry leaders, engineers, sales professionals and student interns to create a unique work ecosystem, driven by our mission to enable people to stay active, free from joint pain.