CORPORATE OFFICERS
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
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William N. Starling, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer,
Synecor, LLC
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Nathan Every, M.D., Director, General Partner, Frazier
Healthcare Ventures
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V. Kadir Kadhiresan, Ph.D., Director, Principal, Venture
Investments, Johnson & Johnson, Inc.
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John Maroney, Director, General Partner, Delphi Ventures
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John Onopchenko, Director, Synergy Life Science
Partners
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Daniel A. Pelak, Director
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Thomas Prescott, Director, President and Chief
Executive Officer, Align Technologies, Inc.
CORPORATE OFFICERS
Stephen C. Masson
General Manager and Chief Technology Officer
Steve Masson joined InnerPulse in 2003, leading the company's product
development, product planning, operations, and early relationships with key
technology and funding partners and consultants. He draws from more than 25
years experience in the design and manufacture of implantable medical devices,
including pacemakers and defibrillators.
At Ventritex, Inc., Masson served as vice president of product development,
overseeing the team that created a series of highly advanced implantable
cardiac devices, resulting in the company attaining as much as a 35-percent
U.S. market share and more than $125 million in annual revenue. During his more
than 10 years at Ventritex, he directed hardware, software, and mechanical
development for principal product lines and provided operations and engineering
support for products in manufacturing. Previously, he was vice president of
research and development at HeartWare, Inc., a cardiac-assist device company,
and developed pacemakers at Cordis Corporation.
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Earl F. Bardsley
Vice President, Engineering
Earl Bardsley joined InnerPulse in 2009 when he assumed responsibility for
product concepts, design, development, analysis and testing for the company's
catheter tools used in the implant and explant of Innerpulse's PICDT. His 20+
years experience in medical device R&D and engineering management, specifically
with implant products and catheter systems make him a valuable member of the
leadership team.
Bardsley's career includes early stage start-up companies as well as Fortune
500 companies. Most recently he held the position of VP R&D at Epitek
(Bloomington, MN), an early stage start-up company developing a therapy to
prevent stroke. While there he established the R&D strategy to take a novel
technology from concept to First-in-Man clinical trials. Other early stage
start-up company experience to take products from concept to First-in-Man
clinical trials includes: Percardia (Nashua, NH) to develop a catheter based
heart bypass procedure and Microvention (Aliso Viejo, CA) to develop stroke
prevention products. At Boston Scientific, he managed R&D departments for
developing products for radiology, cardiology, and neuroradiology.
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Terry Ransbury
Vice President, Research and Development
Terry Ransbury joined InnerPulse in 2003 as its first employee and has played a
critical role in developing the company's intellectual property, forging
agreements with technology providers, and building the company's technical
team. He filed the patents for the platform technology and implantation
techniques of the intravascular device.
Ransbury brings 20 years of management and product development experience in
the medical device industry to his position, including assignments at
early-stage as well as Fortune 500 companies. He was the principal designer of
the medical instrumentation device for programming implantable defibrillators
at Ventritex, Inc. As clinical manager at BioSense, he oversaw the field
introduction of the industry-standard CARTO 3D electrophysiological mapping and
ablation system. Each company was acquired for more than $350 million during
his tenure. He also co-founded and served as chief technology officer of
Resolution Medical, Inc., which developed a high-resolution, body surface
mapping system to detect, localize, and quantify arrhythmic and ischemic
cardiac events.
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Dr. William E. Sanders, Jr.
Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer
Dr. William E. Sanders, Jr. is a cardiologist who joined InnerPulse in 2007
after 15 years at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as Director of
Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology. He has extensive experience in surgical
implantation of defibrillators and pacemakers as well as all aspects of
arrhythmia management including ablation. Dr. Sanders has been a major
investigator in multiple national clinical trials of implantable medical
devices. His publications include articles in the New England Journal of
Medicine, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Lancet in addition
to several book chapters. He is board certified in Internal Medicine,
Cardiovascular Disease, and Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology. He has served
as a consultant and advisory board member for several medical companies. Dr.
Sanders earned his Medical Degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel
Hill. He trained in cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine and in cardiac
electrophysiology at Duke University. He completed a Master of Business
Administration at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business, University of North Carolina.
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
William N. Starling, Chairman
Chief Executive Officer, Synecor, LLC
William N. Starling is Chief Executive Officer of Synecor, LLC, (Synecor) a
business generator of new Life Science companies based in Research Triangle
Park (RTP), North Carolina, Santa Rosa, California, and Portola Valley,
California. Synecor (www.synecor.com) has significant academic, scientific,
physician, venture capital, corporate, and investment banking partnerships and
is focusing its efforts on the identification and development of proprietary,
disruptive technologies with extraordinary market potential in the life
sciences field.
As CEO of Synecor, Mr. Starling is a cofounder of BaroSense, Inc., Bioerodible
Vascular Solutions, Inc., (acquired by Guidant/Abbott in April 2004),
InnerPulse, Inc. (formerly Interventional Rhythm Management, Inc.), and
TransEnterix, Inc., the initial four companies founded and incubated by
Synecor. Mr. Starling currently serves as Chairman of the Board for BaroSense,
Inc., a Menlo Park, CA - based obesity company, InnerPulse Inc., a RTP, NC -
based cardiac rhythm management company, and CEO of TransEnterix, Inc., a RTP,
NC - based less invasive GI Surgery company.
William N. Starling received his BS degree from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MBA degree from the University of Southern
California. He began his 29 year career in the medical technology device
industry at American Edwards Laboratories (Edwards LifeSciences). He was
subsequently part of the founding management team and Director of Marketing for
Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. (acquired by Guidant/Abbott), and was a
cofounder, Vice President and Board member of Ventritex, Inc. (acquired by St.
Jude Medical). In 1992, Mr. Starling was a cofounder and Chairman of the Board
of Directors and President/CEO of Cardiac Pathways Corporation (acquired by
Boston Scientific Corporation), and was responsible for raising significant
capital from the early venture capital period through an initial public
offering in 1996.
Mr. Starling has been primarily responsible for raising over $275 million in
private and public capital for the companies that he has co-founded and the
combined revenues of these companies exceeds $1 billion annually. In addition
to the companies that he has co-founded, Mr. Starling has made private
investments in the initial equity financings of over 40 startup companies and
has served/is a Board member in over 20 early stage life science companies. Mr.
Starling also serves as an independent, outside Director of AMI-Semiconductor,
Inc. (NASDAQ:AMIS), a key vendor for InnerPulse, Inc.
Mr. Starling serves on the Kenan-Flagler Business School's Board of Visitors at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the External Advisory Board
of the Stanford Stroke Center at the Stanford University Medical Center.
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Nathan Every, M.D., Director
General Partner, Frazier Healthcare Ventures
Dr. Nathan Every is a cardiologist who evaluates opportunities in biotechnology
and medical devices for Frazier Healthcare Ventures. He joined the firm in
1999, became a partner in 2001, and was instrumental in the formation of
incubator Synecor LLC. Previously, he was an associate professor of medicine
and the director of the Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Center (CORC) at the
University o f Washington.
Every has served on the executive committees of multiple randomized clinical
trials in cardiovascular medicine, including the COURAGE trial funded by Merck
& Co., Inc., and the OPUS trial funded by Johnson & Johnson. His
findings have been published in more than 50 scientific publications, including
The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and The Lancet. He serves on
national committees for the American College of Cardiology, American Heart
Association, and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Board certified in
internal medicine and cardiovascular medicine, he earned his medical degree
from Emory University and master's degree from the University of Washington's
School of Public Health.
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V. Kadir Kadhiresan, Ph.D., Director
Principal, Venture Investments, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation
Kadir is a principal at Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation. As part
of Medical Device Investment Team he focuses on opportunities throughout the
United States.
Kadir has more than 15 years of medical device industry experience in various
functional roles including research, product development and business
development. Prior to joining JJDC, Kadir was with Guidant Corporation/Boston
Scientific, where he led transactions in several novel medical device
technologies for joint development, M&A, licensing and monetizing
non-strategic assets. Prior to business development, in R&D, Kadir led the
development of several early stage technologies by managing more than 60 people
and ~$12 MM annual budget. Kadir was also instrumental in the development of
the cardiac resynchronization therapy for heart failure, now > $2B market
worldwide. At Heart Rhythm Technologies (a subsidiary of Guidant), Kadir led
the development of an ablation technology for treatment of atrial fibrillation
and raised venture finance for the project.
Kadir is an inventor on more than 25 patents and has published several articles
in peer-reviewed journals. Kadir holds a MBA from the Kellogg School of
Management at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. He also graduated with a
BS in Electrical Engineering from REC, Trichy, India and MS and PhD in
Biomedical Engineering from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
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John Maroney, Director
General Partner, Delphi Ventures
John Maroney focuses on medical device and diagnostic investments for Delphi
Ventures. Before joining the firm in 2003, he was president and chief executive
officer of EndoTex Interventional Systems, Inc. He previously held a variety of
senior management positions, including president and general manager of EP
Technologies, and vice president of operations at both Boston Scientific
Corporation and Cardiovascular Imaging Systems (CVIS). While at CVIS, he was a
key member of the senior management team during the company's initial public
offering and eventual acquisition by Boston Scientific. In addition to his IRM
duties, he serves on the board of directors of TriVascular, Inc., and as
chairman of the board of EndoTex. He earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical
engineering from the University of California, Davis.
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John Onopchenko, Director
Synergy Life Science Partners
John Onopchenko is a Managing General Partner of Synergy Life Science Partners,
a venture capital fund investing in private, early stage medical device firms
or emerging companies who are combining a medical device with a therapeutic
payload (drugs, biologics, etc) - so called "combination product"
opportunities.
John has spent his entire 25-year career in the medical device industry. He has
nearly 20 years of senior leadership experience split equally between two
world-class companies: General Electric & Johnson & Johnson. As a
venture capitalist, John's experience spans the last 6 years as Johnson &
Johnson Development Corporation's (JJDC) lead medical device investor.
Prior JJDC, John progressively increased his operating responsibilities through
the development and commercialization of six new-to-the-world technologies:
surgical stapling, endoscopic surgery, medical lasers, magnetic resonance
imaging / spectroscopy, catheter-based therapies guided by digital fluoroscopy,
and H2O2 gas plasma sterilization. His global leadership experience includes
general management, business and product development, operations along with
marketing and sales management.
John received his Masters in Business from the University of Chicago, Graduate
School of Business and completed the Advanced Management Program at Oxford.
John received his Bachelors of Science degree from Ursinus College.
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Daniel A. Pelak, Director
Dan Pelak has a long history as a senior executive in the medical device
industry, compiling a successful track record in growing young companies and
corporate operating divisions. Before joining InnerPulse, he was the chief
executive officer of Closure Medical Corporation, a global leader in the
development and manufacture of biomaterial-based medical adhesives, until its
acquisition by Johnson & Johnson in 2005. He began his industry career at
Medtronic, Inc., where he spent more than two decades. His executive
assignments there included vice president of cardiovascular marketing, as well
as vice president and general manager of three operating divisions: Nortech,
Cardiac Surgery Technology, and Perfusion Systems.
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Thomas Prescott, Director
President and Chief Executive Officer, Align Technologies, Inc.
Before joining Align Technologies in 2002, Thomas Prescott was president and
chief executive officer of Cardiac Pathways, Inc., and a consultant to Boston
Scientific Corporation after its 2001 acquisition of the company. He previously
held various sales, general management, and executive positions with Nellcor
Puritan Bennett, Inc., management positions at GE Medical Systems, and sales,
marketing, and management positions at Siemens. He also serves as a director of
privately held R2 Technologies, Inc. He earned a master's degree from
Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a
bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Arizona State University.
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