How to Make a Medical Device Pitch Deck [A Clear Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- Feb 7
- 6 min read
Updated: May 2
Our client, “Dr. Krish,” asked us a great question while we were working on their medical device pitch deck: "How do you convince investors to believe in your product when they don’t understand the science?”
So, our Creative Director answered, “You don’t sell science. You sell urgency, outcomes, and who the hell loses if your device doesn’t exist.”
As a presentation design agency, we work on many medical device pitch decks throughout the year, and we’ve noticed one painful, recurring challenge: Founders get so obsessed with the tech that they forget the story.
And investors? They’re not here for a crash course in biomedical engineering—they’re here to find their next multi-million dollar bet.
Why Medical Device Pitch Decks Are Whole Different
Here’s the deal, medical device pitch decks aren’t your typical startup fluff. You’re not pitching an app that finds cheaper avocados. You’re pitching something that could literally save lives.
But most investors? They’re not doctors. They don’t care about the inner workings of your biotech marvel. What they do care about is this: Is this urgent? Is this scalable? And are we all screwed if this doesn’t get built?
The problem? Most founders turn their decks into a technical data dump. Pages of jargon, trials, and FDA buzzwords. Impressive? Maybe. Persuasive? Not even close.
Here’s what we’ve learned designing these decks: You don’t sell the science. You sell the story—who’s in pain, how your device changes that, and why they should fund it now.
How to Make a Medical Device Pitch Deck
1. Start With the Pain, Not the Patent
The biggest mistake founders make? They open with the technology. Bad move. No one cares about your device until they care about the problem it solves.
So you start by dragging the pain into the spotlight. Is it a surgical process that’s outdated and risky? A diagnostic method that fails half the time? A condition that affects millions but is ignored because it’s not sexy enough for mainstream pharma?
Whatever the problem is, make it real and make it hurt. Use data, yes—but human data. Show the patient stories. Paint the scenario where status quo solutions are clearly broken. Investors aren’t won over by features. They’re moved by friction. If you can make them feel the urgency, they’re already leaning in before you’ve even named the product.
And here’s the twist—if you don’t spell this out in plain language, your audience checks out. Your pitch should read like it’s designed for someone smart but not specialized. Which, frankly, is most of your investor room.
2. Position the Device as the Hero, Not the Topic
Now that they feel the problem, don’t explain your device—position it. There’s a massive difference. Most founders launch into the specs: size, components, materials, algorithms. That’s not a pitch. That’s an engineering blog.
Instead, your slide should answer one brutal question: "What changes forever once this device enters the world?”
Think impact-first, not product-first. You want the investor to visualize a clear before-and-after scenario. Before: misdiagnosis, slow recovery, high costs, patient frustration. After: precision, speed, better outcomes, money saved.
We worked on a pitch for a company making a wearable surgical assist device. Their original slide said, “Bluetooth-enabled haptic feedback with dual-mode calibration.” Cool. No one knew what the hell that meant. We rewrote it as: "Gives surgeons a sixth sense inside the body—less guesswork, more precision, better outcomes. "Suddenly, people got it.
You can dive into the tech later, once the hook is in. But in your pitch, sell the transformation, not the tech porn.
3. Validate It Like You’re On Trial
Let’s be honest. Medical investors are risk-averse creatures. They’ve been burned by pretty decks with zero traction. So once you introduce the solution, you need to back it up—hard.
This is where most decks either win or die. The validation slide. It has to scream: We’re not just inventors. We’re proving this thing works.
This doesn’t mean you need a finished product or FDA approval (though hey, if you have those, flex it). But you do need something:
Results from pre-clinical testing
Letters of intent from hospitals or clinics
Preliminary discussions with the FDA
Endorsements from credible medical advisors
Pilots with actual patient data
Any awards or grants from credible bodies
This is the difference between “we think this will work” and “other people with credibility also believe this will work.”
Also—don’t dump this info in a table. Frame it. Show you know how brutal this space is, and that you’ve already cleared hurdles. That tells the room you’re not naïve. You’re battle-tested.
4. Know Your Market (And Respect the Red Tape)
Tech founders love to talk TAM—Total Addressable Market. And sure, it’s a nice fantasy number. But in medical, the market is never as easy as slapping a dollar sign on a population size.
You have to respect the barriers. Regulatory approvals, hospital purchasing cycles, insurance reimbursements, distribution to health systems—this stuff is slow, political, and packed with gatekeepers.
That’s why your deck can’t just say “$4B market.” That means nothing. Instead, show that you’ve mapped the actual route to revenue.
Who are the early adopters?
Who writes the check—hospitals, insurance, government?
How long is the sales cycle?
What’s the CPT code path (if applicable)?
Are you going direct-to-physician, or working with medical device distributors?
The best market slide we ever built showed a visual path: from first pilot in outpatient surgery centers → to scaled adoption in hospitals → to government partnerships. That’s real strategy. Not just a dollar figure pulled from Google.
Investors want to see that you understand how brutally hard this game is—and that you still know how to win it.
5. The Team Slide Shouldn’t Be a Resume Dump
Another common fail: turning the team slide into a LinkedIn copy-paste fest. We get it—you’ve got PhDs, MBAs, and people who’ve published in The Lancet. That’s great. But the slide needs to answer one question: Why this team for this problem?
Focus on relevance, not credentials. If your CTO previously scaled a wearable that went through FDA Class II, say that upfront. If your Chief Medical Advisor ran clinical trials for a similar product, lead with it. This isn’t about prestige—it’s about fit.
And please—if your CEO has zero medical background but knows how to fundraise, sell, and scale—own it. Don’t hide the business brain behind the science squad. Investors want to see both.
One of the most compelling team slides we’ve designed had just three faces and this line at the top: "We’ve built, funded, and scaled regulated hardware in medtech before—and we’re doing it again.”
That kind of confidence, with receipts, is what makes people take you seriously.
6. Financials: No Hockey Sticks Without a Map
You know the graph: flat line, flat line, then boom—massive up-and-to-the-right fantasyland growth. That’s not a forecast. That’s fiction. And investors have seen it a thousand times.
If you’re going to show projected revenue, tie it to real-world events:
Year 1: Regulatory approval
Year 2: Initial pilots + early revenue
Year 3: Expanded clinical adoption
Year 4: Insurance reimbursement kicks in
Year 5: Scaled hospital integration
Now your revenue line makes sense, because it’s anchored in actual milestones. That’s what smart investors want to see—not ambition, but evidence-based ambition.
Also, be upfront about your burn rate. Medical devices aren’t cheap to build or test. Show where the money goes—R&D, clinical trials, regulatory, manufacturing, etc. You gain trust when you show you’re not guessing.
7. The Ask Slide Isn’t About You. It’s About Them.
This is where founders usually say something like “We’re raising $3M to scale operations.” Cool. But here’s the problem: you made the ask about you.
Reframe it. Make the investor see what they get when they say yes.
So instead of: “We’re raising $3M for R&D and FDA trials.”Say:“$3M gets us to Class II FDA clearance and first hospital contracts—de-risking your investment and positioning you for Series A returns within 24 months.”
Now it’s about them. The return. The timeline. The risk profile. Be specific, be credible, and tell them what the money buys—not just for you, but for the whole venture.
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