CobiCure
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345 Park Ave South
New York, NY 10010
contactus@cobicure.org
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The CEO of EverPulse shares how her journey as a "heart mom" led her to create a foundation bridging the critical funding gap in pediatric cardiac device innovation.
A conversation between Katie Bales, CEO & President of EverPulse, and Emma Moran, Head of CobiCure MedTech
December 2024
Katie Bales is the CEO and President of EverPulse, a nonprofit foundation with a mission to accelerate innovation in pediatric heart care. In this conversation with Emma Moran, Head of CobiCure MedTech, Katie opens up about the experiences that shaped her mission, the urgent gaps she's working to close, and the bold vision driving EverPulse forward.
Emma first met Katie through PolyVascular, a CobiCure grantee developing a pediatric-sized heart valve, where Katie's passion for solving long-neglected challenges in congenital heart disease was immediately evident. Since then, EverPulse and CobiCure have teamed up to champion early innovation by co-sponsoring a shark-tank–style pitch competition with the Pediatric and Congenital Interventional Cardiology Society (PICS).
What inspired you to launch EverPulse? Was there a particular moment or experience that crystallized the need for this foundation?
Honestly, EverPulse began long before I ever knew it. It started the day my son JJ was born with a complex congenital heart defect. Becoming a heart mom dropped me into this world I didn't know existed, one where your life becomes a mix of surgeries, cath labs, ICUs, and hoping your child lives a full life.
As JJ grew, I found myself pulled deeper into the CHD community—not just as a parent, but as someone who wanted to understand the science behind his care and help push it forward. I got involved in fundraising for foundational research, joined advisory groups and parent-led organizations, and worked alongside advocates who were trying to close the gaps we all kept running into. The more I learned, the clearer it became that children were often treated with tools never meant for them. That reality hit home when JJ needed a device that didn't exist for kids, and an adult device had to be used off-label and adapted in real time during his procedure. It was the best option available, but it underscored how urgently pediatric innovation is needed.
Later, through my work with PolyVascular, I saw the same pattern from the inside; brilliant teams, world-changing ideas, but an incredibly hard time finding early funding. Those two paths, my lived experience as a mom and my work in innovation, collided and made the need impossible to ignore.
EverPulse is my way of doing something about it.
Can you elaborate on the main challenge that EverPulse is trying to solve in pediatric heart care?
One of the biggest challenges is that most of the devices we have today are designed for adults, not children. So kids often end up with two choices: something that doesn't really fit their anatomy, or nothing made for them at all. And when adult devices are used in kids, doctors often must get creative in the moment to make them work. It's not because they're improvising, it's because children aren't just small adults. Their anatomy and physiology are completely different, and they're constantly growing, which means they need solutions built specifically for them.
The primary reason for this lack of pediatric cardiac devices is funding. Early-stage pediatric innovation can be tough to get off the ground because the market is smaller than adult counterparts and the science is different enough that you can't just "shrink" an adult device. So, a lot of really promising ideas stall out before they ever reach patients. EverPulse exists to bridge that gap so that kids aren't left waiting for technologies designed for someone else.
Can you tell us how EverPulse plans to deploy capital, and how you plan on balancing impact with long-term sustainability for the foundation?
We use a three-part model designed to meet innovators exactly where they are:
Sustainability will be primarily driven by PRI returns that flow back into EverPulse to fuel more innovation, and these investments often involve partnering with, or forming, syndicates alongside other like-minded investors to amplify our impact.
The balance really comes from diversifying. Some of what we do looks like traditional philanthropy, some looks more like early venture philanthropy. Together, it gives us the flexibility to support a wide range of innovation while also keeping the foundation strong enough to do this work for years to come.
As organizations working in overlapping spaces around pediatric medical innovation and rare diseases, where do you see the greatest opportunities for nonprofits like ours to work together?
There's an enormous amount of opportunity for collaboration in this space, because no single organization can tackle all of the challenges on its own. One of the biggest areas is simply sharing visibility and networks so innovators aren't constantly reinventing the wheel. We can also make a bigger impact when we co-fund high-risk research, those bold ideas that might not move forward unless multiple groups step in together, which was why EverPulse was excited to partner with CobiCure on the PICS shark tank.
Another area is helping create clearer pathways for innovators, from early discovery to prototyping, clinical validation, and eventually market adoption. And of course, elevating the patient and family voice is critical as it's often the missing perspective that can shape what truly gets built and why it matters.
The needs of kids with complex conditions cross so many boundaries: clinical, regulatory, scientific, emotional, that the more nonprofits align and support each other, the faster we can move the entire field forward.
What does "mission accomplished" look like for you? If you could wave a magic wand, what would pediatric heart care look like in 10 years because of EverPulse's work?
In the next ten years, I think that realistic and meaningful progress would be seeing a true shift in how pediatric innovation moves forward, more collaboration across organizations, fewer roadblocks for early-stage ideas, clearer pathways from research to patient care, and a growing momentum where device development for children doesn't feel like an uphill battle every step of the way. If we can help remove some of those barriers and accelerate the journey, that alone would make an enormous impact.
And then there's the dream, the long-term vision, where children finally have devices designed for their bodies, their growth, and their futures. But even getting closer to that world, by making the system work better and faster for kids, would be a huge win.
If EverPulse helps move the field toward a place where the standard of care truly fits children, I'll feel like we've done what we set out to do.
How do you aim to communicate this need for support and advancement of new devices to parents, who may not even be aware that this problem exists?
One of our goals for 2026 is to create clear, parent-centered messaging that explains the reality of pediatric devices today and why advancing new solutions matters so much.
As a heart mom myself, I think the conversation starts with compassion and transparency. Many parents don't realize how often children rely on devices that were designed for adults, used off-label, or adapted in real time because no pediatric version exists. It's not a failure of the clinicians, it's a gap in the system. And once you understand that, it becomes very clear why innovation in this space needs support.
So when I talk to other parents, it's less about the technical details and more about the truth that our kids deserve tools made for them, for their anatomy, their growth, and their futures. And the only way we get there is by investing in research and early-stage development now, so families down the line have better options than we did.
My hope is that by being open about these realities, parents can feel both informed and empowered to be part of the momentum toward something better.
Finally, if you had advice for a parent, innovator, or philanthropist who wants to help accelerate pediatric heart innovation, what would you tell them?
I'd say: don't underestimate YOUR role. Parents bring lived experience. Innovators bring ideas. Philanthropists bring fuel. None of those pieces work alone.
You don't have to start a foundation or invent a device to make a difference. You can show up for families, support research teams, fund early prototypes, elevate voices, or simply keep asking, "Why don't kids have better options yet?"
Change in pediatrics happens when enough people refuse to accept the status quo. If you're willing to be one of those people, you're already part of the solution.
About EverPulse: EverPulse is a nonprofit foundation accelerating innovation in pediatric heart care through strategic funding and partnerships. Learn more at everpulse.org.
About CobiCure: CobiCure is a nonprofit subsidiary of Advancium Health Network dedicated to accelerating pediatric medical device and therapeutic development for rare diseases. Through strategic grantmaking, partnerships, and community building, CobiCure works to ensure that children with rare conditions have access to life-changing innovations.
Interested in partnering with CobiCure or learning more about our work in pediatric innovation? Contact us.