May 7, 2014 by Brian Johnson

As Medtronic‘s  (NYSE:MDT) resident technology scout and visionary, Dr. Stephen Oesterle’s job is to challenge the status quo at the world’s largest pure-play medical device company.

This morning Oesterle’s challenge to the medical device industry, issued at a meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council, was a sobering one.

 “Our arch-competitor in 20 years will not be Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX) or St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) or Covidien (NYSE:COV) or HeartWare (NSDQ:HTWR). It will be Google(NSDQ:GOOG). I am certain of it,” Oesterle told the audience at MassMEDIC’s annual conference today in Boston.

Oesterle, Medtronic’s senior vice president for medicine and technology, travels a quarter-million miles a year scouting new technologies, potential partnerships and other unique opportunities for Minnesota’s medtech Goliath. He also has access to an R&D budget that would make many of his colleagues jealous, but that’s nothing compared to what Google is spending, Oesterle said.

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