Advocacy and views
In her public commentary and thought leadership, Jepsen has challenged conventional paradigms in medical innovation, healthcare access, and technology development.[1] Jepsen argues that traditional, proprietary medical-device development models are too slow, expensive, and risk-averse to address urgent global health challenges effectively.[9] Instead, she promotes open-source, collaborative approaches that leverage shared technology, data, and manufacturing practices to accelerate innovation, reduce costs, and democratize access to advanced diagnostics and therapies.[52]
Jepsen asserts that the bottleneck in delivering breakthrough medical technologies is not primarily regulatory agencies, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but rather the outdated innovation model itself.[53] She has called for the creation of open, modular platforms and shared safety and performance data repositories that would allow innovators to build on common foundations, reduce redundancy, and supply regulators with richer evidence to inform faster decisions. This approach, she believes, could compress device development timelines from over a decade to just a few years and cut development costs by orders of magnitude.[1]
Jepsen’s advocacy extends to open access to intellectual property and collaborative engineering. In public discussions and interviews, she has explained that open-sourcing patents, software, and hardware designs for medical devices under permissive frameworks like the Affero General Public License can expand participation in research and reduce development barriers.[54] Openwater, the company she leads, has publicly discussed embracing open innovation, aiming to share core technology while enabling diverse contributors to iterate and improve upon it.[2]
Beyond innovation models, Jepsen advocates for scalable, consumer-electronics manufacturing as a way to lower the unit costs of advanced medical devices.[3] She argues that applying established semiconductor production techniques to healthcare technology similar to those used in smartphones and other mass-market electronics can make high-performance diagnostic and therapeutic tools affordable and globally accessible.[55]
Jepsen also addresses inequalities in technology and healthcare participation, highlighting barriers faced by women in technology industries and advocating for broader inclusion and representation.[56] In a public statement she noted that many senior women leave technology sectors due to isolation and systemic bias, underscoring her belief in the importance of diversity and equity in innovation ecosystems.[57]
Additionally, Jepsen has publicly shared personal reflections on healthcare systems, including the challenges of accessing quality health insurance and the impact of system design on patient outcomes.[56]
