New AireHealth CEO to oversee product line expansion

Kien Nguyen knows the health care sector, from its giant corporations to its emerging startups.

Nguyen spent more than a decade of his career with conglomerate Johnson & Johnson and global medical technology firm Kinetic Concepts Inc. In 2019, he founded consulting firm alphaMedTec and worked with numerous startups as a result.

Nguyen will further his journey into the health tech startup world as the new CEO of Orlando-based AireHealth Inc. Nguyen was announced as the firm's new chief executive on April 26, following the departure of Stacie Ruth last fall. Ruth, who is director of AireHealth's board, took a job as senior vice president of virtual health care at Best Buy Health.

Meanwhile, Nguyen steps into the role during a crucial time for AireHealth. The company in December received U.S. Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance of its nebulizer, which connects with AireHealth's app to allow patients and physicians to monitor respiratory symptoms — even when a patient is at home. That means the company can take the product to market.

AireHealth will grow in other ways, as well, Nguyen said. AireHealth last summer bought California health care firm BreathResearch. The technology and research AireHealth picked up as a result will enable the firm to pursue other medical devices that allow patients and doctors to track and manage their health remotely, he said.

Here, Nguyen shares more about what's next for AireHealth:

What most excited you about this job? I found that I really enjoyed the startup world. I enjoy the pace, the people, the culture, focusing on new technologies, being able to bring that technology to market much faster than I would have done with a larger group. It just happened that I've been working in the startup world the last year and a half, and then this opportunity came up. When I looked at it, it seemed like it was a very strong fit. It's a space that patients have high clinical needs. When I looked at AirHealthe, they had all the components in place.

What is the current focus for AireHealth? What we need to do first is to get it into the hands of clinicians and get some early clinical experience. We want to be able to get this product that's been through the FDA into the hands of a few institutions and people to be able to capture that clinical and patient experience, and show that with our technology and the connected feature, patients are more compliant to treatment, which means they receive the treatment they need and they are healthy.

What growth goals does the company have? We have a platform and more products we want to work on. From a product development perspective, it is a big area of focus for us. We've got a product that is able to treat patients, able to help patients take their drugs. In the future, we want to be able to have some testing tools. We want to be able to create simple-to-use products that patients at home can use to be able to collect their clinical information and share that with physicians. As we ramp up, we've got to be able to produce products. We're looking for contract manufacturing partners right now.

What do you like to do when you're not working? I love the outdoors. I love to hike, fish and ski. I have two boys, ages 19 and 15, and they're very active. When they were growing up, they used to play a lot of baseball. I would sit outside and watch them play baseball, go to upwards 100 games a year.

Kien Nguyen,

CEO, AireHealth Inc.