What It Takes to Win Physician Confidence: Interview with Secure Closure CEO Stephen Belcher
In this episode of Medsider Radio, we sat down with Stephen Belcher, co-founder and CEO of Secure Closure.Secure Closure is developing Quattro-Close, a device designed for large-bore femoral access sites.Trained as a veterinarian, Stephen has spent more than 25 years in the medical device industry, with deep experience in vascular access and closure technologies. He previously held commercial and marketing roles at Abbott Vascular, Edwards Lifesciences, and Teleflex, where he was involved in launching key closure devices, including ProGlide, StarClose, SAPIEN 3, and MANTA.In this interview, Stephen discusses what actually drives physician adoption in high-stakes procedural fields, how real-world clinical and patient challenges should shape device design decisions, and what early-stage fundraising looks like when traditional medtech VCs are increasingly committing capital at later stages.Before we dive into the discussion, I wanted to mention a few things:First, if you’re into learning from medical device founders and CEOs and want to know when new interviews are live, head over to Medsider.com and sign up for our free newsletter.And if you’re ready to level up your medtech game, you should check out Medsider Courses — 8-week masterclasses covering topics like fundraising, M&A and exit planning, design and development, clinical and regulatory strategy, and commercialization.These courses, featuring hard-earned lessons from elite medtech CEOs, can be purchased individually or come free with our All-Access Pass.If you'd rather read than listen, here's a link to the full interview with Stephen Belcher.KEY MOMENTS FROM THE INTERVIEW(02:52) - An overview of Stephen Belcher’s background and the journey that led him to founding Secure Closure
(08:04) - How Quattro-Close works, using a purse-string suture and extravascular clip for reliable closure and artery preservation
(13:53) - Stephen's lessons learned from large strategics and how he simplifies them for a startup
(19:22) - How Stephen spent nearly a decade iterating on the device through failures, funding gaps, and small incremental progress
(23:36) - Why physician adoption depends on consistent outcomes, not early excitement or new features
(28:10) - How Quattro-Close is designed around the real unmet need, reducing complications while preserving the artery for future procedures
(34:14) - His approach to first-in-human, site selection, and generating data that can stand up to FDA scrutiny
(40:31) - How Stephen navigates early fundraising
