top of page

Lara Wynne | Gate Science, Inc. | January 2025


Holly Smithson

Welcome, everyone. I want to welcome you to this edition of Athena's Lifting While Climbing podcast. I'm Holly Smithson, your moderator and host for today's podcast and Athena CEO. I am really, really honored, to have a special guest in our studio. Welcome, Laura. When everything looks really cozy, where you are out in Connecticut.

Lara Wynne

And it's 16 degrees today. So we keep it cozy on the inside, not on the outside.

Holly Smithson

Well, we've got we've got a really hot discussion on on, on tap today. And I'm just really excited to to share with the audience a little bit about your journey as the co-founder and chief business officer at Gait Sciences. Tell us about the company. Tell us about your role and more importantly, about the journey that led you there.

Lara Wynne

Yeah. So I'm chief commercial officer. Co-founder and chief commercial officer. So, I, I was a stay at home mom for ten years, but I never sat still. So I started my own business, called couture walls. I did decorative finishes and murals. I did, I design cosmetic bags for Bloomingdales and JCPenney and Nordstrom, and some of my murals were featured in magazines like Traditional Home magazine.

Lara Wynne

So I always worked, even though I considered myself a stay at home mom. And I went through a tough time, like many women do at some point. I went through a divorce and you know, my my mother and my uncle talked to me and said, you need to find a career where you have medical insurance, dental insurance, where you have a car and your art business is great, but.

Lara Wynne

And and it pays you well, but you need all of these benefits. You have young children. So I went, I they said you and my mother really pushed me to get a job in pharmaceuticals. She said, that's what you have to do. So I pursued a career and I was. I feel like I've been so lucky in my career because I was able to connect with some really great companies, really innovative products that that were so exciting.

Lara Wynne

And I felt like I was on the cutting edge. So I was I was hired by the first company, that I worked for, which was Dinosaur splint, and I would meet patients at Doctor offices or orthopedic surgeon offices and fit them with splints, follow up with them. It was a lot of grunt work, but I grew and ultimately became a president club member and really loved what I was doing.

Lara Wynne

I felt like I was really making an impact and helping patients who had issues with range of motion or tone and spasticity. And after five years at that company, I was recruited by Genzyme Bio Surgery, which was probably the hottest biotech company in the space at the time. And they had recently acquired, a viscose supplement for knee osteoarthritis and injection called SanDisk.

Lara Wynne

I went to work for, for Genzyme, and I was there for the launch of Synovus one. Many of the products on the market before for Knee Pain had been many multiple injections, and we had a sync, the first single injection. So I worked with orthopedic surgeons, and I learned that I had a real knack for identifying really talented advocates, great surgeons who really believed in something that were able to spread the word.

Lara Wynne

I had probably the most incredible female influencer on my career, in my experience at Genzyme bio surgery. Her name is Kim Beckman. Stat and and you know, miracles happen. You know you want. And it's not a miracle. I think it's karma. You wind up working with these great people again and again because, you know, you work well together.

Lara Wynne

You know, you know, she was someone who built a great culture and and she was very focused on noble purpose and doing what was best for patients, for physicians. And I wound up working with her again in two other companies in the future, and I'm currently working with her now at Gait Science. So, she was an incredible mentor to me and taught me so much, particularly about, maybe not AI, but technology at the time.

Lara Wynne

So I worked for Genzyme bio surgery. I was always hungry for more. I wanted that next level, but I wanted something like a killer product, and I had worked mostly in the clinic with conservative treatments. I wanted to be in the operating room because all I heard was how great that was. So I, I left Genzyme, I was recruited by a company.

Lara Wynne

I took a huge pay cut to go to a medical device company where I, I mean, it was a third of what I was making and for my base salary, but with the potential to really exceed what I was making if I went and, you know, eat what you kill kind of business, just crush it. It was a great new product called Aquaman to control blood, to manage, you know, bleeding during big involved, award cases.

Lara Wynne

I I'd never been in the o.R. Before, except to observe once or twice. And here I am. Now, I'm a resource in the operating room with this new widget device. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm trying to figure out how to build the cart, build the machine, and deliver it to places. So I. I launched that product again, crushed it.

Lara Wynne

We did so well and identified several big key opinion leaders who went out and advocated across the nation for adoption of this product. The company was, was acquired by Medtronic. So I worked for Medtronic for a little while, and I learned I don't like working for great big companies where, you know, there are 10,000 email addresses.

Holly Smithson

Yep.

Lara Wynne

I loved it. I had an incredible experience there, but I wound up moving from there and I thought I would try something really different. And I went into, women's Health for a little while. I worked for a company, that was a JNJ spin out with a women's breast biopsy device called Mama Tome. So it was breast biopsy, and we also had a near probe device.

Lara Wynne

It was a capital device, used for, sentinel node biopsy. So patient, physicians and patients could avoid having to do a full, node dissection that ends up with lymphedema and all kinds of awful things. And that was a great launch to be part of and really meaningful. I did that for about a year and a half, and I learned that I didn't have what it takes to work in, oncology.

Lara Wynne

I just, I felt, I felt I think there are heroes who are so good at that. And I felt, my heart went out to every woman, every patient. I cared so much that it was so overwhelming. I wanted to get back to orthopedics, where I was working in a really positive environment that I felt like all these patients get better.

Lara Wynne

So I wound up leaving and I went to visit. I left that company with great success. And I went to I was offered a really great role that advanced my career at Zimmer, Zimmer, Zimmer, Biomet, as, director for a new division they were creating, which was, Sports and Ortho Biologics. So they had acquired all these.

Lara Wynne

They were a joint total joint arthroplasty company that was expanding into Sports, Ortho Biologics. It acquired several companies. So I led a team of 32 reps and help them grow their business. And we launched a few products. One of them was Subconscious Plasticity, which was, more conservative treatment for osteoarthritis than joint replacement. I loved it. And again, now I'm covering a much bigger area, working with all men.

Lara Wynne

Poly. I mean, they're all men. The surgeons are all men. All of the 32 people who I managed. All men. My boss was a man. I mean, I'm the only woman there, and I thrived, but sometimes, you know, you bang heads, heads a little bit because. You're a woman. Period. Right?

Holly Smithson

I'm the only one.

Lara Wynne

Yeah. So we had great success there. We launched a few products. We got them off the ground for for one of the products. We were the number one region in the entire country. We did double what the next, region did. So we were just given all these accolades and rewards and in more incentives. So I was there for a while.

Lara Wynne

That was a really great experience. I kept hearing about a new company with a new product, and surgeons kept telling me if this product works, it will be the biggest game changer in orthopedics in 100 years. And the product was X, the company was PC3, and they had developed the first long acting Bupivacaine. So if you imagine getting Novocain when you go to the dentist, it numbs the entire area.

Lara Wynne

So Bupivacaine is what they use to numb your knee or numb your shoulder when you're having a near shoulder surgery they had, and then it wears off right after surgery and you're in pain and you take opioids. So this one lasted for three days. So this this drug had the potential to be injected prior to surgery and extend that just numbing pain relief to get patients over three days after surgery.

Lara Wynne

So it was just an incredible experience. And, you know, again, I worked with all these thought leaders. I had gotten to know and charged many of them with, how do you figure out how to place this? Because it was very technique dependent, whether it worked, how do you figure out how to use this in a shoulder? Let's figure out how to use this in this surgical model.

Lara Wynne

And we were able to bring opioid free or opioid surgery to many patients across the country. And that I think it was such a complex sell because you're working with the surgeons and the anesthesiologists. There were more women at position, but not a lot more. But it was a, it was one of the best experiences that, that really lit a fire within me at that company about opioid sparing surgery.

Lara Wynne

And, I eventually was offered an incredible position at another new startup, which was Flexion Therapeutics. So they had a knee injection for osteoarthritis, a long acting steroid. There was another opioid free option where steroids can last for six weeks, but this lasted for 3 to 4 months. So I was given a national role as a key account executive.

Lara Wynne

And I was charged with building the commercial speaker's bureau for the company at its start, and working with key opinion leaders to really get traction and formulary approval at hospitals all over the country. So I worked with the sales teams and Kols to get the product approved so we could get faster uptake and bring this therapy to patients all over the country.

Lara Wynne

I loved it there, and I started working closely with the co-founder who, had invented the product, but he was working on two new, portfolio products. One was the first gene therapy for osteoarthritis, and the other was another like similar to XBRL, a pain, a local analgesic that did not affect motor function but affected pain perception that extended the benefit from three days to 7 to 10 days.

Lara Wynne

So I helped put together focus groups I loved I love working there. And then they were I brought in a fantastic regional anesthesiologist who developed many of the blocks that are used for orthopedic surgeries around the world and to consult with us, and he had an invention he was working on that combined, administering a nerve block with nerve stimulation and nerve stimulation is commonly used in chronic pain, but it's not used for post-surgical pain.

Lara Wynne

Although it worked and the data shows that it works very well because of reimbursement challenges. So he had this great idea. I introduced him to the co-founder and flexion, Sultan Bezerra. This company sold to the company I worked for before. And when that happened, the co-founder at Flexion and Sanjay Sinha, the brilliant regional anesthesiologist I mentioned, with this new and new invention, the three of us formed a company that we call gait science.

Lara Wynne

So I am a co-founder and chief commercial officer for Gait Science, and we have a product that will provide opioid free pain relief after orthopedic surgery that lasts for up to 30 days. And that that is a massive innovation. It is a huge leap forward. We're approaching pain management in an entirely different way from anyone else. It's a dual platform and the patient is in control.

Lara Wynne

So when the patient goes home and they have pain, instead of reaching for an opioid pill, they can reach for. And we talked about technology an app on their phone. And they're able to increase or decrease the electric pulse based on the pain that they're having in the moment and get get a result.

Holly Smithson

Wow. I you know, you talk about, you know, leaving the oncology space and then going into orthopedics, because there's always a, there's a greater winning percentage, which I completely appreciate. And you and then you layer on that, you know, the opioid epidemic and.

Lara Wynne

Is huge with women after, after, mastectomy reconstruction and many of these surgeries, they have to go through so many surgeries, so they're getting opioids after opioids after opioids.

Holly Smithson

So the idea that you're not only, mitigating, you know, the opiate, experience, in a significant fashion, you're guaranteeing that it's just a surgery. It's a standard surgery or not a standard, but it's a surgery. And then there's a quick recovery. So again, you're just talking about where you can have the biggest impact leading to the, to the most favorable patient outcomes.

Holly Smithson

So kudos to you. That's a that's a pretty, pretty exciting journey, that you shared. And for our audience, for all those in the audience that are listening to your story, that are, you know, moms and were like, yeah, I'm a mom, but I'm so much more than that. Right? And it's just like for people that are sitting there like, I want to do something more.

Holly Smithson

I want to be able to do what I love, do what I'm really good at. But I also want to contribute to the world of, you know, women's health. As an example. And your example is just it's just it's it's pretty powerful.

Lara Wynne

And it's a lot to balance to as your career is advancing, when your career is advancing, there's more travel, obviously, because you just have to be in more places. And I think that's hard to balance as a mom. You know, men always travel and moms stay home. And so that's hard, you know, leaving your kids. But I think you find a rhythm.

Lara Wynne

You find a rhythm. You find a way to feel like your kids are safe. And you can set such a great example for them. I have three daughters, so I'm setting example for an example for three girls that you can have a career and you can be a mom.

Holly Smithson

And a damn good one, I might add. I want to, I want to, I want to shift our conversation. Speaking of, daughters, I understand that your 17 year old Delaney, that you took her, on a mission, a surgical mission to Honduras, and you just got back. Tell us a little bit about that mission.

Holly Smithson

Talk about the impression that it made on Delaney. As she was so fun trying to figure out what is she going to do when she leaves high school? For her career and her impact on the planet.

Lara Wynne

So, as I mentioned, you know, I have this huge network of orthopedic surgeons across the country, and I was an invited speaker at a Beckers health care event in Chicago, about three months ago. And one of the surgeons, I have a great relationship with, who's on our advisory board at Great Science, and I were talking and he was talking about his kids.

Lara Wynne

I talked about mine, and I said, gosh, you know, I've got this teenage daughter. She's 17, she's a junior in high school. I have to say, we have to start figuring out what she's going to do with her life. Where does she want to go to school, what does she want to pursue? And I said, this is a little overwhelming right now.

Lara Wynne

You know, I haven't done this in a long time. My other daughters and I told her and I said yes, but she doesn't have focus or direction. She's such a great kid and she's got great potential. And I said, oh, I know that feeling. And a week later he called me and he, I knew he'd been doing this incredible medical mission in Honduras for ten years.

Lara Wynne

And I said, oh, good luck on your mission this time. So a week later, he called me and he said, I was thinking about our conversation and your daughter, and I think you should submit an application to be a general volunteer for this mission in Honduras. So he runs this this brigade. There are 30 brigades a year that go to Honduras for one world surgery.

Lara Wynne

They have a 20 acre ranch. And on that ranch is a hospital. There is, an orphanage. Children who were just really on the street or had their parents couldn't take care of them or had been, you know, victims of, severe abuse. And there's a school. So general volunteers have an opportunity to work and interact with the surgeons and the hospital work at the school, work with the children, work to help, just even make food.

Lara Wynne

I did inventory one day. I, I worked in the dental clinic one day as a dental assistant, and I'm holding suction while they're drilling teeth. My daughter had an opportunity. They have, and it's a sustainable ranch. So there's there are pigs and cows and other animals in the garden. So my daughter one day had the incredible opportunity.

Lara Wynne

She's never been in the water to scrub in for a rotator cuff surgery. And she was right there. She got to see and experience something that kids just never experienced at that age. Yep.

Lara Wynne

And with the great mentorship of these world class surgeons Michael Radler, Scott Sigman, Greg Cole, bath, Mark Miller, and Peter Novak, a rising star. He's, chief resident at Columbia, and he's going to do a hand fellowship at NYU. But these incredible world class surgeons bring bringing world class help, like surgical solutions to these patients in need.

Lara Wynne

And she got to stand by their side and be scrubbed in for a case. And then the next day, she was cleaning pigs, dies and milking cows. So just what? And and helping in the kitchen and doing all these things. So I think it just made an incredible impact on her. I have to thank Michael Adler from the bottom of my heart for pushing me to volunteer to do this.

Lara Wynne

He has the biggest heart of any surgeon I know. He is completely committed to this mission. Scott Sigmon is another one. They brought down so many donated, pieces of equipment or devices to help with the surgery. And they're they are world class surgeons without world class equipment or tools. They're MacGyver ING everything, and I mean, just brilliant.

Lara Wynne

You know, they're figuring it out because they're world class. And my daughter got to see that. And now that we're back home, I think she'll never forget this trip. And now she wants to be an orthopedic surgeon.

Holly Smithson

And I you know what I love about that story? When you were, sharing it with me in the green room was this notion that, having somebody whether it's your mom, whether it's a colleague, whether it's a peer, whether it's a client or a customer, giving you exposure to new opportunities and really open your mind, like expand, expand the mind about what's possible, and the world of Stem.

Holly Smithson

And for you to plant that seed, at 17 years old for for little Delaney, is exactly the, the experience and the, the example that I hope others, will embody and consider offering other people, not necessarily those that, that are, that are under your responsibility, as an, as a dependent. But I, you know, when I think about what you did for Delaney and obviously, bringing her into that experience, it's the exposure and for all the things that, for all the people that give us that kind of that opening, and let us think about what's possible is, is really what the Lifting One Climbing podcast is all about.

Holly Smithson

And, so I salute you. I salute you for that. And I would I would ask you, who is that person for you? Because everything that you shared in your leadership journey was men, men, men, men, men, men that.

Lara Wynne

You could mention come back and start. Right. Who was, my mentor and and my, she just she's the one who hired me at Genzyme Viva surgery. So when I went to Flexion Therapeutics, she had told them about me and brought me and kind of needed a role where I could be, a leader in key accounts in building a commercial speaker's bureau.

Lara Wynne

So she was the one who helped them carve out a role for me at that company. And now at Gate Science. I, I was able to bring her on as our vice president of commercial development, and I couldn't do my job without her. She is an incredible resource. She's just she is someone who has mentored me. I there's no one else I can I can even call out who has made such an impact on my career in my life.

Lara Wynne

She elevated me. She always gave me extra roles and was able to get me all kinds of exposure and and kind of cleared the way for me to do what I wanted to do and be me and make things happen, you know, which I think is hard sometimes in our industry to just get the buy in. If you have a great idea or creative idea, have the trust from you know, your company and your leaders to let you go with your instinct.

Lara Wynne

And yeah, I yeah.

Holly Smithson

That having that stakeholder buy in, you know, having someone giving you that enough rope to go out there and innovate, which you, you certainly have that as a, as an advantage. I already, I already know that, very creative, creatively minded, I think is, is powerful because that again, requires sponsors, you know, in the room that are talking about we're talking about you and you're not there to talk to a group of executives and say, now we're going to create a position for Laura, because this is the value creation that is waiting for us on the other side.

Holly Smithson

So let's figure it out. So and so the idea that having those type of people that are so critical to your success, your career successes is, an obvious one, but something you said at the beginning of our discussion was, I don't know, maybe it was just Carmel Holly, where you had all these great people and, and and I, I would say I would submit karma.

Holly Smithson

Sure. But in addition to that, it's like really nurturing that ecosystem, really nurturing those people. It's a two way street, right? People are you're sought after because they know what you bring to the table, but it's a two way street, right. And, so I'd like to talk to you a little bit about how you were able to do that because you're all, you know, cream rises to the crop.

Lara Wynne

Yes, yes. And there are other women I've connected with. And there are great men who are great supporters of women who have also elevated me, I would say Paul Sethi, who is, well, you know, one of the course directors at shoulder 360 and I'm organizing a women's networking event. One is IRA Kirschenbaum, where he brought me on four and a half years ago to be his chief academic officer for this journal.

Lara Wynne

He dreamed up Joey, the girl with the Pedic experience and innovation and said, Laura, you're you're connecting with all the different specialties and orthopedic help in orthopedics. Help me build this editorial board. A world class leaders across the country in every orthopedic specialty. And I've worked with him for four and a half years. But there are people who elevate you.

Lara Wynne

One of them was Christy England, who was at Heron Therapeutics. And, you know, sometimes you meet a woman and you just connect. You can you just feel it? I think the first time we met, I felt this great connection. He was at Heron Therapeutics. They brought a forward, another opioid sparing therapy that competed with zebra. You know, when it was really needed.

Lara Wynne

And she she connected with a lot of the thought leaders. I introduced her to a few people, and we just kind of had a great synergy and a great collaboration. And she introduced me to Athena, and I was able to take the Athena on boards, course, which I loved, connecting with all those women leaders and building out of a board resumé that I could use.

Lara Wynne

To even further advance, you know, my career and ability to serve.

Holly Smithson

Well, we can have a conversation about badass women without talking about Christie England. So I, I appreciate you saving the best for the last. And that's actually how we got introduced was Christie. Yes. So I yeah, I just love that. I have I have to tell you, I'm just so excited about, as we wrap up here, I'm really excited about, the opportunity, for Athena to partner with the 360 shoulder conference out in Miami.

Holly Smithson

And opening that up as widely and broadly as possible for for women that want to come in. So talk a little bit about that, great alliance that you were, able to bring to life and fashion and here Lora fashion.

Lara Wynne

I, I really thinking out of the box. Holly. I mean, this course these surgeons who are younger surgeons, like, really we talk about I, we talk about all the changes in the world. These guys are really the younger generation of surgeons that are thinking out of the box, that are thinking about medical education in a different way.

Lara Wynne

What is it people remember 20% of what they hear. They wanted to increase that number. So and, and change medical education. When you come to this meaning you will be blown away. They. Right. Last year they did this during, a race car thing in Miami, and they were all wearing these race race car driver outfit.

Lara Wynne

They had badges on their arms. Of all the sponsors of the course, every speaker had a custom made Italian, blazer. I mean, there was an energy, there was a vibe, there was an orthopedic rapper there. So the goal for them is to really make education fun, take it to the next level and just make a make it a party all day, where it's just so much fun and everyone is participate.

Lara Wynne

If a speaker gets on the stage and is boring and starts lecturing like happens in medical conferences, they gong them off. This room. So the three course directors are Paul Sethi, Joe Abood, and Rafi Mirza, and they are three just super energetic young shoulder surgeons. They have other courses that they run, but this is kind of their brainchild, and they really wanted to do something inclusive of women.

Lara Wynne

And this year, this is their fourth year. They're trying to really reinvent CME. And they said, we want to have a women's networking event at this meeting that we will attract people that aren't necessarily interested in shoulder or are interested in staying for the meeting. But we want to support women. So we talk about those men who really support women.

Lara Wynne

That's Paul Sethi, Joe Abood and Rafi Mirza. And so they work. This is the first time they're doing it. They're going out on a limb. They're kind of trusting me to help with this networking event, and I'm so honored to be able to help them. And I immediately thought of you and how and Athena and how we could expand this from just being a shoulder meeting and inviting the women who are already attending, but make it something where women on the on the East Coast, women in the South, women all around, you know, who are able to get to Florida can be there.

Lara Wynne

That makes them, you know, meaningful connections and network with other women who can help them elevate them. And, you know, I think Athena has done great things for women, elevating opportunities for women. And executive leadership, women on boards. And, I think this is an incredible partnership. We're so lucky to be working with you.

Holly Smithson

Yeah. Thank you. And so that's going to be Miami, Florida is going to be I'm want to give the dates and the location.

Lara Wynne

Yes. Oh gosh. Is it April 1st for the third.

Holly Smithson

It is.

Lara Wynne

It's the I need to look at my calendar. It's the Wednesday. It's the Wednesday night. All the everybody's there Wednesday night because the meetings start early Thursday morning. But we're going to attract people that aren't there for the meeting. I expect maybe, but thinking is the Wednesday night from 5 to 7, you are going to be the keynote speaker and we're going to really kind of create a great networking experience for these women.

Lara Wynne

So they have real connections and they walk away with something that's meaningful. It will help them.

Holly Smithson

And I and I love I love what you said about, you know, trying to take, you know, the best, medical education, and, and do it with a different approach and make it experiential. We are not buying products anymore. We are buying experiences. We do not learn. We do not know. Knowledge transfer happens not when we tell it, but when we experience it.

Holly Smithson

So kudos to you. I'm excited to bring Athena and and build this alliance to make sure that we can reach the women, that want to take part of this, and have them follow in your lead. Right. So whether you're in the industry or you're not in the industry, but you're a professional woman, maybe you're a mom.

Holly Smithson

Maybe you're ready to get back out there. The kids are gone. It's time for you to get out there. I just think there's just all sorts of opportunities here. And, excited to link up with you and and, partner. This is going to be fun.

Lara Wynne

So this this event, our event that we're co co branding, which is, I just think so fun and such a win. Is is at shoulder 360 in Miami on Wednesday April 2nd from 5 to 7 p.m..

Holly Smithson

Right. We'll be sure and include that link in in the summary here. But I really want to thank you for taking time out, and sharing your very, very illustrious career. And it's, it's one that I suspect is just getting started. I can't wait for the next version. And just honored to to take part, in the, in the conference, in April.

Holly Smithson

So thank you very much.

Lara Wynne

Oh. Thank you. Holly, I'm so excited to get to partner with you. It's going to be just such a win for me personally.

Holly Smithson

All right. Thank you so much. Laura Wynn, co-founder and chief commercial officer for Gait Sciences. Thank you so much for joining us, Laura. And we'll see you all next month at Athena's Lifting Wild Climbing podcast. Take care. Thanks.


Recent Posts

See All

留言


bottom of page