Denise Demarais likes to get things done. Trained as a biomedical engineer but with broad expertise spanning fundraising, intellectual property, project management, quality systems, and more, her resourceful, decisive approach helps build strong foundations that maximize success for startup companies and their leaders.
At Fogarty, Demarais wears multiple hats. As COO, she “built the back end of the house,” developing the operational systems that support the company’s incubator programs and ensure everyone has what they need, from office and lab space to shared equipment, resources, training, and onboarding.
Tackling this complex task required detailed planning, organizational skills, and a no-nonsense, get-it-done approach—all qualities that come naturally to Demarais. “I like to proceduralize things,” she said. “It enables us to do the same things the same way for everyone, track outcomes, and optimize our process.”
Thanks to her efforts, Fogarty’s operations are now so streamlined that “they mostly run without me,” she said. While she checks in regularly with her team, most of her time is spent in other roles, including serving as the in-house expert on intellectual property (IP) and the lead coach for several Fogarty companies-in-development.
The Startup IP Playbook
Demarais first got interested in IP when, as an R&D manager at Bacchus Vascular, she attended meetings with the company’s patent attorney and learned the fundamentals of patent prosecution, writing disclosures, and capturing inventions. That interest—and her proficiency—deepened later when she worked as entrepreneur-in-residence at The Foundry, evaluating intellectual property in clinical areas under review.
At Fogarty, Demarais helps companies answer IP questions and stay out of trouble, most notably with regard to public disclosure. “First time entrepreneurs often don’t know what not to do,” she said. “They make mistakes like inadvertently sharing unprotected IP that is a critical part of their competitive difference in pitch competitions or financing decks.”
Beyond reinforcing the risks, Demarais helps founders reframe how they think about IP. “In startups, IP is a continuous process,” she explains. “You can’t just file once and think you’re done. You’re always learning and evolving your solution—so you have to keep filing as you go, and before you disclose.”
To drive these lessons home, and to help startup leaders maximize their own understanding, she teaches a highly regarded “IP 101” course that introduces essential principles. The practically oriented course is in constant demand from students and early-stage entrepreneurs, and she supplements it with quarterly “IP Roundtables” for Fogarty companies where she brings in guest speakers to reinforce concepts with exercises and real-world stories. The demand for her expertise extends beyond Fogarty as well—most recently, she presented on the topic at an Innovation Workshop that she, CEO Andrew Cleeland and John Morriss, director of Fogarty’s invention acceleration program, led during a Mayo Clinic Cardiology and Radiology Innovation Summit.
Coaching Startups
As a lead coach, Demarais draws on her thirty years of operational experience to help Fogarty-incubated companies thrive.
“Denise was an essential part of the Raydiant team,” said Neil Ray, MD, founder and CEO of Raydiant Oximetry, a maternal health company that is a Fogarty graduate. Ray, an anesthesiologist, started the company with two other first-time entrepreneurs with the goal of using a novel fetal pulse oximetry technology to better detect fetal distress and improve outcomes for mothers and babies. But just months after joining Fogarty Innovation, two of the three leaders departed, leaving Ray on his own.
“I had no startup experience and was at a loss for how to pick up the pieces and go forward,” recalled Ray. “It was totally daunting.” Demarais stepped in, helping him rebuild a team, raise an oversubscribed pre-seed round, and develop confidence and poise as a leader.
“She believed in me—she convinced me that I had the fortitude to make this happen and motivated me to do it,” he said. “She was incredibly generous with her time.”
Today, Raydiant employs a team of fourteen and has one product on the market and a second in clinical development. “I still reach out to Denise regularly,” Ray said. “She has great insight into the subtleties of this business.”
Cleeland agrees. “Denise’s expertise is truly multifaceted,” he said. “She’s an engineer, an intellectual property expert, a fundraiser, a leader, and a skilled speaker and teacher. She also keeps me in line by holding me to deadlines and helping turn big ideas into actionable plans.”
A Legacy of Innovation
Although Demarais came to Fogarty Innovation at Cleeland’s invitation, it is actually the third time she has worked in a “Fogarty company.”
“I’ve known Dr. Fogarty for basically my entire adult life,” she said. After completing a master’s degree in bioengineering at Marquette University in her home state of Wisconsin, Demarais moved to California and got a job as a test engineer at AneuRx, a Fogarty-founded company developing a stent graft to treat patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms. It was a high-pressure assignment—the product was already built and all testing needed to be completed in time for an IDE submission by the end of the year—but she pulled it off.
Six months after she started, AneuRx was acquired by Medtronic. Demarais stayed on, eventually shifting her focus to project management—her “innate core competency.” Three years later, Dr. Fogarty called again. “He wanted to start a company in thrombectomy (Bacchus Vascular) and asked if I wanted to join him. I said, ‘Of course!’”
She describes Fogarty fondly as gregarious, candid, and direct. “He just calls things the way he sees them and gets stuff done,” she said.
After five years at Bacchus, Demarais left to pursue her own ideas, filing obesity-therapy related patents before joining the Foundry as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Her work there led to the inception of Ardian, the company that pioneered renal denervation as a treatment for hypertension, and to her professional relationship with Cleeland, who was hired as CEO. As Ardian’s vice president of R&D, Demarais, Cleeland and the rest of the team proved the company’s foundational concept before selling it to Medtronic for more than $1.3 billion.
Finding Balance
After Ardian, the natural next step might have been a CEO role—but Demarais chose otherwise. “I cannot do anything halfway,” she explained. “Just being VP at Ardian took me away from any kind of home life. I was always thinking about work, even when I wasn’t there. But after Ardian, I felt like I had nothing left to prove.”
Her search for balance ultimately led her to reunite with Cleeland at Fogarty Innovation, where she applies her expertise, strategic insight, and organizational skills to making everything—from startup companies to strategic initiatives—work better.