MedTech Unplugged, the Future of AI in Healthcare & Life Sciences | Richard Yang, Sonablate

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Richard Yang

CEO

Sonablade

play_circle_outline Focused ultrasound (HIFU) as non-invasive therapeutic modality for prostate cancer and BPH.

play_circle_outline Benefits: focal treatment preserves sexual function and urinary continence; outpatient same-day recovery.

play_circle_outline Sonablate: 20+ Years, 70,000 Patients, 200 Publications — Three Decades of IU School of Medicine Innovation

play_circle_outline Focused Ultrasound Platform: Neuromodulation for CNS Disorders, Oncology and Vascular Targets, LIFU-Immune Synergy Reducing Toxicity

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Richard Yang, Sonablate

September 25, 2026

Richard Yang

CEO Sonablade

In this interview from theCUBE + NYSE Wired: MedTech Unplugged, Richard Yang, chief executive officer of Sonablate, joins theCUBE + NYSE Wired's Gemma Allen to discuss how focused ultrasound is turning sound waves into a precision surgical tool. Yang explains how high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treats prostate cancer and BPH without incisions, targeting only the tissue that matters while preserving sexual function and continence. He details how a device delivered through the rectal wall achieves disease control comparable to prostatectomy or radiatio... Read more

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What is high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for prostate disease and how does it compare with traditional prostate surgery in terms of how it works, invasiveness, precision, and patient recovery? add

What motivated the decision to develop/use Sonablate HIFU and to choose prostate cancer as its initial clinical application? add

What was Sonablate's original go-to-market plan? add

What potential future applications and indications are being pursued for Sonablate / focused ultrasound beyond treating prostate cancer and BPH? add

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Richard Yang, Sonablate September 25, 2026

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>> Palo Alto Studio Connection, Silicon Valley and Wall Street. I'm John Furrier, hosting theCUBE here with Dave Vellante, my co-host.

Gemma Allen

>> Welcome back to theCUBE Studio here at the New York Stock Exchange. I'm Gemma Allen, co-host of MedTech Unplugged, one of our shows with NYSE Wired. And today we're talking about a company that's trying to turn sound into a scalpel. Sonablate uses focused ultrasound to treat issues without cutting into the body with some very impressive results for prostate cancer patients, and now it's saying that AI and precision medicine can take that technology far beyond just one disease. Richard Yang is the CEO of Sonablate. Richard, welcome to NYSE Wired.

Richard Yang

>> Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Gemma Allen

>> So maybe help me understand this, taking sound and using it from the perspective of precision medicine within a surgical environment. Help me understand, Richard. Give me the 101.

Richard Yang

>> So ultrasound, HIFU, called high-intensity focused ultrasound, is a sound wave using acoustic power, focused acoustic power, to treat the prostate disease, including prostate cancer and BPH. So it's like a magnifier under the sun and try to burn a small hole in the leaves, but this is not the sunlight. This is acoustic power ultrasound. So ultrasound used to be used for diagnosis. Now ultrasound is used for therapeutic treatment.

Gemma Allen

>> Wow. when we think about traditional surgeries, right, you have to have a surgery for any reason. In the case of Sonablate and your use case, people who are having a tumor removed from their prostate, you typically in traditional surgical environments, cut around to get access to the piece that you need to remove, right? And there I'm sure is some level of unnecessary damage perhaps to parts of the body in doing that. what are the efficiencies that it's driving here? Is it causing, less pain and discomfort after the fact of a surgery? help me understand the benefits of being that precise. In a surgical theater.

Richard Yang

>> Yeah, ultrasound, different from many other devices, go through urethra or cut a small hole, use robotic surgery. This is totally non-invasive. The probe is going through the rectum, going through the rectal wall. We use focused ultrasound precisely, remotely, non-invasively to treat the tissues we want to target. We only treat the tissue that matters and protect how people live. Not just provide excellent disease control, but also preserve the quality of life. So patient is outpatient, it's a daytime treatment. The patient returns home the same day without pain or bleeding.

Gemma Allen

>> Everyone loves the thought, I think at least the suggestion of a non-invasive surgery, right? It sounds a lot more attractive, I suppose, or a lot more tolerable than most. The decision to take Sonablate and again use prostate cancer as the initial use case, what drove that decision?

Richard Yang

>> Well, when we talk about prostate, someone has prostate cancer, they first they get really scared. Wow, what am I going to do? So what options do I has? Either traditional way, you has prostatectomy, which is, robotic surgery, try to remove the whole prostate. And the second choice will be radiation. So both of the treatments, of course, will provide a great disease control. The issue is side effect after treatments. Big percentage of them are going to lose sexual functions and also majority of them will has urinary side effect of incontinence. So, but when we use Sonablate HIFU to treat the patient, the prostate cancer patient, then we can achieve similar disease control in even the long term, right? We're talking about not 5 years, not 8 years, we're talking about 10 years or 15 years. We can achieve the similar disease control with the golden standard. The beautiful part is the side effect is minimal. Yes.

Gemma Allen

>> Well, that's fantastic, right, for any cancer survivor.

Richard Yang

>> Yeah.

Gemma Allen

>> So the decision to look at ultrasound technology and think, wow, this actually has, another usability from the perspective of precision surgery. How did that come about? what brainwave moment did you has, Richard, or your colleagues that made you think, okay, there's really an opportunity here? Tell me about the original go-to-market plan.

Richard Yang

>> Well, Sonablate has been around for over 3 decades, so we're not a startup. So we are the leader, global leaders of therapeutic ultrasound. We are the pioneer. So we have to build a lot of foundations in the USA, Europe, and many other countries in the world. So this is through many years of clinical trials, research, technical innovation to achieve to the point where you take— where you accumulate enough clinical outcome like we have done. Over 70,000 patients worldwide and over 20 years of data, 200 peer-reviewed publications. Now you can draw a conclusion and say, look, we can provide the same clinical outcome to treat the prostate cancer focally, not try to remove the whole prostate. Of course, we can treat the whole gland, we can treat the hemigland, But most beautiful part is treat focal gland and then you maximize protection of the sexual function and avoiding incontinence and, minimal damage to the patient.

Gemma Allen

>> What's really interesting about medtech companies is the longevity and the persistence that it takes to actually get these companies and these technologies over the line. Right. We talk a lot about technology companies that it's so instantaneous in terms of the result that they can expect. But you guys, it's a much longer game in the medtech space, right? You have to go through the FDA process, trials, approvals, pre-approvals, clearance. Talk me through that. I'd like to understand from the perspective of someone who's on the other side of it now, I believe, because you guys are FDA cleared. How painful and onerous is that process?

Richard Yang

>> It is a very costly, painful process when you have some— you are the pioneer of therapeutic ultrasound. Nobody has ever done that before. So you have to build up a device, you have to trial on animal studies, and then you have to try it on the humans, and you have to change, make tweaks on your technology, and based on the feedback, and then you have to trial, keep trying on that, and you have to follow up. Even though you have done so many trials, you have to still follow up 3, 5 years before you say, oh, this technology is working. So it is like we said, we can— it's fast to build a medical device, but it takes decades to produce a convincing outcome, clinical outcome. You cannot just say my technology is great. How do you know? Oh, I have 1 year data, 2 year data. That's not going to work. So treating cancer is a serious business. You cannot predict the outcome. So you have to wait another 10, 15 years before you say I'm really good on that. Now, is that your best choice?

Gemma Allen

>> it surely takes a real level of dedication and belief even from those around you, right? The folks that invest in these companies because it's not a quick win game for sure. AI has created this perception though that everything is going to be a quick win, right? We suddenly believe that there's a level of sorcery amongst us that things can be fixed tomorrow that were not fixed for the last 7 or 8 decades. When it comes to medical devices and even your own company, how do you think about AI? How do you balance the reality versus the honest view of what is possible and where it will actually have demonstrable impact on scale and speed, etc.?

Richard Yang

>> That's a great question. I would say AI will not replace medical device. AI will be used, or already has been used by Sonablate for functional enhancement. That means with that said, like us, we have a tool called TCM, Tissue Change Monitoring. That means every shot we fire through image analysis, the computer will tell you, hey, this tissue has not been delivered with sufficient energy. You really need to mark it down and go back, give them a higher energy and retreat it again. So to avoid the cancer will not be treated, killed this time, they'll come back. So that's AI. Like energies right now, if the tissue is not being— because every cancer cell is different, you just cannot apply one energy, try to kill all the cancer cells. So the AI will play a role by analyzing the imaging, the tissue change. I know I need more higher energies. So you can automatically raise the energies based on imaging analysis. And many other functions could be— AI element could be used to make the machine smarter and facilitate the physicians to make more precise judgment on when they're making the treatment plan. So we are actually applying a lot of AI elements into this great technology.

Gemma Allen

>> Wow.

Richard Yang

>> Yeah.

Gemma Allen

>> So in terms of what you has built here and what you has proven thus far, you've clearly shown that there are very impressive results from the perspective of prostate cancer. Yes. This technology though, I'm sure, is very transferable to other diseases and other parts of the human body.

Richard Yang

>> Yes.

Gemma Allen

>> What are the goals from here? what are you guys working to solve for next?

Richard Yang

>> Well, surely, like you said, we have built a great foundation by treating prostate cancer, BPH, with the enlarged Tissues. Every male over 65 has some kind of symptoms of BPH enlarged tissues. We can treat both diseases at the same time. But we has a very ambitious plan to grow Sonablate into what we call a platform technology, not just focus on urology section, but go for neuromodulation. We already started treating post-stroke complications could be used for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, depression, autism, and addiction. So many other brain diseases. Hopefully we can treat brain tumor one day. The technology was designed many years ago, actually was tried to treat the brain tumors. So, and with that said, also expanding from all other soft tissue diseases like thyroid, disease, like oral disease, like breast cancer, or benign tumors, liver, or pancreatic, ovary, vascular malformation. And even to pain management, it's so many pains we have, physical pains like tennis elbows or back pains, or some nerve pains from the brain, and you never— you can be treated, with ultrasound. And also called LIFU, low-intensity focused ultrasound, is much lower dosage of energy, could be used for immunotherapy too. Like stem cell combination with stem cells or CAR-T or NK cells can dramatically increase the efficacy of the cells. And also CAR-T cells are very toxic, can be used also. Some of the research already starting that. So one day ultrasound can be used up to 189 diseases per, Focused Ultrasound Foundation research in 2025. Yes.

Gemma Allen

>> I wanna ask you about something that we don't get to talk about enough on MedTech Unplugged because a lot of our conversations are about drugs and trials and go-to-market for drugs, right? And it seems as though a lot of folks are still working their way through that process, like I said. But when it comes to something like this, which is a physical instrument per se, or it's something that actually is in a theater with the surgeon. How do you go to market with something like that? Because my impression is that surgeons are tricky individuals too, right? They're very precise about their own preferences and how things get done. A lot of folks grow up with particular methods, and I'm sure you become an expert in a type of surgery over many years and decades. How difficult is it to convince clinicians and doctors and surgeons you should really think about a new way?

Richard Yang

>> It's hard, not an easy job, but like every new technology, you always have a group of pioneers who are looking for new technologies, who are willing to offer more options to their patients. They are willing to try that. All the time. So we're lucky to have a few hundred urologists in the USA, could be 700 or 800 other urologists from all over the world put confidence into Sonablate, willing to try that. Of course, you have to have sufficient clinical trials and the publication, peer-reviewed publication, before they really give it a shot. But we're lucky to have quite many Actually, right now we have more and more urologists said, well, if you are treating prostate cancer and BPH, especially prostate cancer, you don't offer focal therapy, your package, your treatment, is just not complete. And the patient deserves other options, non-invasive options, which can achieve the same disease control But there are also people living 70, 80, 90, 100 years old. They want to maintain their quality of life after treatment, right? So we have so many passionate physicians working with us right now. So, well, it's certainly not an easy job.

Gemma Allen

>> I don't envy you, and a job that you've dedicated, like you said, 3 decades of your life to the public advocacy for. So, Richard, last question to you. Very interesting company, very interesting time, really great results. we'd love to hear of situations and outcomes like this, right? This is what the best of society is about. Talk me through the kind of company position you're at right now. Are you guys planning to raise more money to potentially fight for, you know, to have this applicability in other parts of the human body or other diseases? What does the roadmap look like from here?

Richard Yang

>> Yeah. After working in the field over 3 decades, it's a great American company out of Indiana University School of Medicine. We're ready. We get all the pieces lined up, all the ducks in a row. I think we are pursuing the IPO in 2027, early 2028. Depends on— yes, we are raising pre-IPO. Pre-IPO around $200 million. The money will be used generally, general revenues. And we have so many new trials in the pipeline. We want to get it done so we'll be able to help more people in different— with different diseases and treat them noninvasively. So our job is— our slogan is treat what matters, right? And we try to protect how you live. So

Gemma Allen

>> that's—

>> well, that is very exciting. Well, I hope we will see you ring the bell here at the New York Stock Exchange. We will cheer you on from the floor. Richard Yang, thank you so much for joining us on NYSE Wired.

Richard Yang

>> Thank you for having me today. We will see you here. And thank you for talking to me. Thank you.

Gemma Allen

>> I'm Gemma Allen here at theCUBE Studio at the New York Stock Exchange. This is NYSE Wired's MedTech Unplugged. Thanks for watching.