Portland digital health startup taps industry veteran as CEO
Photos / Courtesy of MedRhythms
From left, MedRhythms co-founder Brian Harris has been succeeded as CEO by Larry Jasinski. Harris will transition to the role of chief scientific officer.
A dozen years after Brian Harris and Owen McCarthy founded MedRhythms, the Portland-based digital health startup has tapped an industry veteran as its next leader with immediate effect.
Larry Jasinski, previously CEO of Lifeward Ltd. (Nasdaq: LFWD), an international medical technology company based in Massachusetts and Israel, succeeds Harris as CEO.
Harris will become chief scientific officer while working with his successor to build the market and lead the next growth phase, the company said in Monday's announcement.
Jasinski brings more than three decades of executive leadership in the medical device and neurotechnology industries. At Lifeward he led the company formerly called ReWalk Robotics through an IPO and secured national reimbursement for the first exoskeleton system for spinal cord injury.
"MedRhythms was founded on the vision and mission of transforming patients' lives and Larry has dedicated his career to that same mission,” Harris said.
“His experience is an ideal fit for the next important phase of the company, and I look forward to working with him to continue to advance the company's mission and increase its impact in bringing important care to patients who need and deserve it,” he added.
MedRthyms employs 40 people and has raised more than $60 million to date. It recently won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a device to help Parkinson’s disease patients improve their walking, mobility and motor function.
Jasinski is joining the company four months after MedRhythms hired Joel Behnke as chief commercial officer.
"MedRhythms has innovative fundamental technology, well-established published clinical data on effectiveness [and] an elegant and easy-to-use product with good margins," Jasinski said. "MedRhythms will improve many lives and is positioned to become a valuable business entity. I'm honored to join this mission-driven team and look forward to accelerating our growth and impact on patients' lives."
Jean Hoffman, a MedRhythms board member who led the CEO search committee, said that the board and investors look forward to Jasinki’s leadership “into the next phase of company growth.”
A spokesman for MedRhythms said that Harris will remain “deeply involved” as co-founder and executive leader, with McCarthy playing an “integral role” in onboarding Jasinski though otherwise “fully focused” on his gubernatorial campaign. McCarthy is a Republican candidate for the Maine governor’s race in 2026.
Harris and McCarthy were honored on the Mainebiz Next list in 2018.
Harris is a certified neurologic music therapist, while McCarthy studied biological engineering. In a joint interview at the time, they told Mainebiz that while the field of neurologic music therapy may be small, the need for this care is not.
Two years ago, MedRhythms launched a device called InTandem to improve walking and movement in chronic stroke patients using "prescription music" recordings from Universal's extensive catalog.
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