How AI Is Slashing Medical Product Development Time by 50% with Megan Rothney
The intersection of healthcare and AI is no longer a distant promise. It’s happening now, reshaping how diagnostics are developed, how quickly patients receive treatment, and how physicians make decisions. At the center of this transformation is a fascinating conversation from the Signal to Noise Podcast, where host Eóin O’Toole sits down with Megan Rothney, Vice President of Product at PictorLabs.
Megan’s career spans biomedical engineering, diagnostics, and AI-driven product development. From her time at PathAI and Verily Life Sciences to her current role at PictorLabs, she has built a reputation for bridging technical expertise with regulatory strategy and market adoption.
In this episode, Megan shares how AI is helping companies cut development timelines in half, why virtual staining is a game-changer in histopathology, and what it really takes to balance speed with safety in healthcare innovation.
Cutting Development Time in Half
Traditional medical product development is notoriously slow. Gathering data, building models from scratch, and providing clinical safety can stretch timelines into years. However, Megan believes AI has fundamentally changed the pace.
“What we’re seeing right now is a product that might have taken a year before. We can cut out almost half the time if we’re using AI and applying the most current modeling principles,” she explains.
Why? Two reasons:
- Access to historical patient data: Instead of relying solely on costly, time-consuming clinical trials to generate new datasets, AI models can be trained on existing patient data, accelerating the early stages of development.
- Mode advanced, off-the-shelf models: Modern AI architectures no longer need to be hand-coded from scratch. Researchers can now adapt pre-existing frameworks, speeding up prototyping and testing.
The result is faster development cycles, earlier testing in real-world environments, and ultimately, quicker delivery of life-saving technologies to patients.
Virtual Staining: Redefining Histopathology
One of the promising innovations at PictorLabs is virtual staining, a technology that could revolutionize cancer diagnostics.
Histopathology, the process of examining tissue samples under a microscope, typically requires five to seven stained slides for an accurate diagnosis. Virtual staining reduces that requirement to just one slide.
This seemingly small change has two major benefits:
- More tissue available for genomic analysis: Precision medicine depends on understanding a patient’s genetic profile. By saving tissue, virtual staining ensures more patients can access advanced genomic testing.
- Faster turnaround times: With AI-powered virtual stains generated in minutes, pathologists can diagnose on the same day the sample arrives, significantly reducing delays in starting treatment.
Balancing Innovation with Patient Safety
The rapid pace of AI innovation often collides with the slower, more cautious world of regulatory approval. While large language models evolve weekly, healthcare products require rigorous testing and FDA clearance, a process designed to safeguard patient well-being.
Megan acknowledges this tension:
“We’re a long way from being able to update the model that’s used in the clinic every time a development sprint ends on Thursday. But we can predict a couple of generations out, anticipate what improvements we’ll need, and work with regulators like the FDA to plan for those changes.”
Far from being an obstacle, she’s found the FDA to be a receptive partner. Regulators understand AI is here to stay, and their goal is ensuring safe, evidence-backed adoption. PictorLabs tackles this by:
- Running external validation studies, so independent experts can confirm diagnostic accuracy.
- Publishing results in peer-reviewed journals to build trust with physicians.
- Anticipating product updates early and involving regulators in the planning process.
This proactive, transparent approach ensures that speed doesn’t come at the expense of patient safety.
Building Teams on Values, Not Pedigree
Beyond the technical advances, Megan emphasizes that people remain at the heart of healthcare innovation. In building her teams, she resists the pressure to hire based on elite schools or prestigious resumes.
“I really try to focus less on pedigree and more on people’s core skills and values.” Problem-solving ability, adaptability, and alignment with the mission matter more than credentials.
For Megan, leadership is about stewardship, caring for the business, the mission, and the patients who will ultimately benefit. It’s also about ensuring no one gets left behind. She recalls a key moment in her career when feedback about her “single-minded focus” pushed her to slow down and bring her teams along more intentionally, ultimately transforming her leadership style and strengthening her teams.
Final Thoughts
AI is slashing healthcare product development timelines by up to 50%, opening new possibilities in diagnostics, drug discovery, and precision medicine. However, success depends on more than technical breakthroughs; it requires patient safety, regulatory partnership, and values-driven leadership.
Megan predicts that within the next 10 years, AI will move from the margins to the center of medical practice. Diagnostics tools, personalized treatment recommendations, and even operational efficiencies in hospitals will all increasingly rely on AI.
The barriers? Regulation, data interoperability, and physician adoption. But none are insurmountable. With mission-driven leadership and collaboration across science, technology, and clinical practice, the industry is steadily advancing.
Megan’s Background
Megan Rothney is the Vice President of Product at PictorLabs, where she drives innovation in AI-powered virtual staining platforms for histopathology. With a PhD in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt and extensive experience across diagnostics and precision medicine, she has held leadership positions at PathAI, Verily Life Sciences, and Turing Medical. Her unique expertise bridges technical innovation with strategic product development, particularly in bringing AI solutions to healthcare diagnostics.
Listen now: Signal to Noise Episode 6: How AI Is Slashing Medical Product Development Time by 50% with Megan Rothney
