In 1989, I founded Masimo with an ambitious goal: to solve the “unsolvable” challenge of making pulse oximetry accurate and reliable, even during patient motion and low perfusion.

At the time, conventional pulse oximetry was plagued by unreliability, delivering inaccurate data and excessive false alarms due to patient movement and low perfusion. Lives were harmed and even lost because conventional pulse oximeters failed to accurately monitor those who needed it the most.

My dear friend and mentor, Dr. Jeremy Swan, described conventional pulse oximetry as a fair-weather friend. I believed a superior technology—one that would be accurate and reliable during challenging conditions of motion and low perfusion—was possible. In partnership with another dear friend and fellow engineer Mohamed Diab, we set out to make that goal a reality.

The Masimo Difference: Signal Extraction Technology^®

In 1996, Masimo Signal Extraction Technology (SET^®) was introduced at the World Congress of Anaesthesiologists in Australia. Over time, SET^® transformed from a breakthrough technology into the standard of care for monitoring oxygen saturation and pulse rate at top hospitals around the world. Since its launch, more than 100 independent and objective studies have shown that Masimo SET^® outperforms other pulse oximetry technologies, providing clinicians with unmatched sensitivity and specificity to make critical patient care decisions.¹

As the underlying technology driving many of our solutions, SET^® remains as disruptive today as when it launched. Just this past year, we’ve achieved significant accuracy specification improvements with our new line of eco- and patient-friendly RD SET^® sensors. And, in line with our unrelenting pursuit of perfecting pulse oximetry for motion, we released Radius PPG™, a tetherless pulse oximetry solution powered by Masimo SET^®, providing accurate monitoring for patients on the move.

From dramatically reducing the incidence of false alarms and missed true alarms to enabling critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) screening with SET^® pulse oximetry and helping save newborns’ eyesight, the legacy of Masimo SET^® is indelibly tied to enhanced patient safety.

2019 Highlights

Our 30th anniversary, 2019, was a milestone year for Masimo in multiple ways. We grew our product revenue by $106 million, achieving 13% product revenue growth on a constant currency basis. 2019 also saw us making significant headway in emerging markets and welcoming many new customers from across the world, resulting in our best year yet for global sales.

Moreover, in 2019 we remained true to our commitment to enhancing patient safety by bringing a range of innovative products and solutions to market—each designed to make meaningful clinical differences and help clinicians improve patient outcomes. From Radius PPG, a tetherless, continuous pulse oximetry solution powered by SET^®, to Halo ION™, which offers care teams a comprehensive, personalized, continuous patient score, we are rapidly expanding our portfolio of solutions to match the evolving needs of modern, high-velocity healthcare.

Finally, 2019 also brought important new evidence to demonstrate the clinical need for noninvasive, continuous hemoglobin (SpHb) monitoring, which, like SET^®, is an area of continual innovation at Masimo.

While earlier studies showed that SpHb helped clinicians reduce the frequency and volume of unnecessary blood transfusions, both in high- and low-blood-loss surgery, a landmark study conducted in Limoges, France, published in 2019, reinforces what we have long believed: SpHb has a significant impact on patient outcomes, amounting in that study to a 33% reduction in mortality at 30 days and 29% at 90 days after surgery.²

The evidence is becoming clearer: SpHb monitoring makes a true clinical difference, helping enhance patient safety, improve patient outcomes, and reduce the cost of care. In 2019, we saw an inflection in the adoption of SpHb by hospitals. We believe that 2020 is poised to be a year of momentum for SpHb adoption as a standard of care, just like SET^®.

While these achievements alone are wonderful news for all of our shareholders, we plan to build on the momentum of 2019 to make 2020 our best year for growth ever—aiming to surpass $1 billion in revenue.

The Next Generation of Innovation at Masimo

At Masimo, we’ve cultivated a can-do environment populated by dedicated, ethical employees who thrive on passion and curiosity and are committed to the common good. As a mission-based medical technology company, we attract team members who possess the brightest minds and the biggest hearts, and give them a collaborative environment where they have support to develop technologies and solutions that are the best for patient care.

Just as we set out three decades ago to perfect pulse oximetry, the next generation of visionary engineers, clinicians, and leaders at Masimo are hard at work addressing the most pressing healthcare technology challenges of the 21st century—each with a profound commitment to enhancing patient safety. They are here, dedicating their considerable talents to our mission, not for prestige or vanity, but in service to the legacy forged by Masimo SET^®. I call them the Masimo purists.

From tackling the opioid epidemic, to delivering automation solutions that will optimize the continuum of great care, to developing clinically useful wearable and home care devices, these purists are leading the charge into the future of medicine.