Board of Directors
Simon H. Stertzer, M.D.
Chairman of the Board
Dr. Stertzer has served as Chairman of the Board since September 2004. Additionally, Dr. Stertzer maintains his position as the Director of Experimental Angioplasty, Clinical Professor of Medicine and Associate Director of International Medical Services at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Stertzer received his M.D. from the NYU School of Medicine and interned in surgery at the University of California Hospitals, San Francisco. He served as Assistant Resident in Medicine at NYU and later as Chief Medical Resident at NYU Division of Bellevue Hospital. He had a fellowship at NYU Hospital in Cardiovascular Disease. His numerous academic and hospital appointments include Attending Cardiologist at NYU School of Medicine 1965-1983, Chief of the Hemodynamics Laboratory at Lenox Hill Hospital New York from 1971-1983, and Director of Medical Research, San Francisco Heart Institute, Seton Medical Center, Daly City, CA, 1983-1992. Dr. Stertzer pioneered the subspecialty of Interventional Cardiology and was the first to perform a coronary angioplasty in the United States. Dr. Stertzer has performed more than 12,000 coronary interventions, and has been visionary in his efforts working with others to develop new technologies for the improvement of patient care.
He was a founder of numerous medical technology companies, including Arterial Vascular Engineering which was acquired by Medtronic, Quantum Medical which was acquired by Boston Scientific, and Vascular Science, Inc. which was acquired by St. Jude Medical. He has written, lectured and taught extensively about such new technologies as: treatment of acute heart attacks with angioplasty, high speed rotational atherectomy, stent treatment of coronary disease, pacemaker therapy, and drug eluting devices for coronary restenosis.
Nicolas Chronos, M.D.
Director
Dr. Chronos is currently President, Medical Director & Chief Scientific Officer of Saint Joseph’s Research Institute where he directs and oversees approximately 30 pre-clinical trials and 25 clinical trials. He is also Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. He received an M.D. in Medicine and Surgery from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London in 1987. He trained in Cardiology under the direction of Dr. Ulrich Sigwart at the Royal Brompton National Heart and Lung Institute. In 1992, he was awarded a British Heart Foundation International Fellowship and moved to the United States for preclinical fellowship training and later a fellowship in interventional cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine under the direction of Spencer B. King, III, MD. He was named Director of Research at the Andreas Gruentzig Cardiovascular Center at Emory University Hospital in 1997. He is world renown for his pioneering research in angiogenesis. He was the Co-National Principal Investigator on the first major clinical trial of fibroblast growth factors in the United States. Dr. Chronos is also highly involved in stem cell and gene therapy research. Dr. Chronos is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians – London, Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, Fellow of the American Heart Association, and Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology. He has published 45 peer-reviewed papers, 95 abstracts, and 17 book chapters. His publications include articles in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation and European Journal of Cardiology.
Patrick L. Whitlow, M.D.
Director
Dr. Whitlow is Director of Interventional Cardiology and a staff member of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He graduated from the University of Virginia Phi Beta Kappa with Highest Honors in Psychology in 1972. He attended Duke University Medical School in Durham, North Carolina, and received his M.D. in 1976. Dr. Whitlow completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Health Sciences Center, Parkland Memorial Hospital and Dallas Veterans Administration Hospital in 1979. He completed his fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease at the University of Alabama-Birmingham in 1981. He joined the medical staff at UAB in 1981 and was appointed Director of the coronary care unit in 1982. In 1984, he was appointed cardiac catheterization laboratory Director until he was recruited to The Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 1986. Dr. Whitlow has been an active member of the Professional Staff at the Cleveland Clinic since 1986 with approximately 80% of his time devoted to patient care and 20% to research and teaching. He has been the Director of Interventional Cardiology since 1991. Board certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease, Dr. Whitlow is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, a member of the American Heart Association Council on Clinical Cardiology and a member of the Editorial Board for several cardiology journals. He was awarded a Young Investigator Award of the American College of Cardiology for his work on coarctation hypertension in 1982. He is listed in the first and second editions of The Best Doctors in America and in the first edition of Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare. He is currently the national or international principal investigator of 4 clinical trials involving the development or evolution of new techniques in interventional cardiology: carotid stenting with the adjunctive use of a device to prevent embolization and stroke, the technique for opening chronic total occlusions with two new mechanical devices, and the percutaneous repair of incompetent mitral valves. He is also the site principal or co-investigator in more than 20 other clinical trials. He has authored more than 150 peer reviewed articles that have appeared in such journals as Circulation, Hypertension, the American Journal of Physiology, the New England Journal of Medicine, Circulation Research, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and the American Journal of Cardiology.
David Auth, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Auth was the founder and former Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Heart Technology, Inc. a developer and manufacturer of microinvasive atherectomy devices. Heart Technology was acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation in 1995. From 1969 to 1985 Dr. Auth was a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington. Dr. Auth received his Ph.D. degree in Physics from Georgetown University. He is a registered Professional Electrical Engineer in the State of Washington and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
Immanuel Thangaraj
Director
Mr. Thangaraj is a Managing Director at Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, and has over 12 years of experience in operations and venture capital. Mr. Thangaraj began his venture capital career in 1992 as an Associate and CFO at ARCH Venture Partners (AVP), a $750 million venture capital firm targeting early stage technology and healthcare investments. In his initial tenure at AVP, he managed one of its portfolio companies, a medical information company, until its sale to a large hospital supplies company. In 1995, Mr. Thangaraj became CEO of Integrated Telemanagement, a telecommunications company, which he helped to found, until its sale to a public company. Mr. Thangaraj joined Essex Woodlands in 1997. In addition to Medlogics, he currently serves on the Board of Directors of CBR Systems, Halsey Pharmaceuticals, iKnowMed Systems, and Sound ID. He is also responsible for the Partnership’s investment in Novacept. Mr. Thangaraj holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Chicago.
James C. Peacock
Director/Founder
Mr. Peacock was the founding Chairman and CEO of Medlogics Device Corporation and currently serves as a Director to the Company. Mr. Peacock is Chairman & CEO of Emerge MedSystems, LLC, a privately-held medical device incubator involved in the early operations forming Medlogics, and that has “spun-out” multiple companies currently in on-going operations that have collectively raised $30MM since 2003. Mr. Peacock is an inventor of several aspects of the Company's technologies, and is a named inventor on 27 issued U.S. Patents in the medical device field. Mr. Peacock co-founded Mitralife, Inc. in 2000, which was sold to ev3, Inc. in 2002. In 1997, he co-founded Atrionix, Inc. (subsequently acquired by Johnson & Johnson Corp.). Mr. Peacock is a Patent Attorney, and worked in the Medical Device Patent Group at Morrison & Foerster LLP in Palo Alto, CA prior to co-founding Atrionix. He previously worked as a senior engineer in the "Skunkworks" group at Guidant Corp., where he was charged with inventing and prototyping new platform products for interventional cardiology. Prior to that, he was an engineer at Baxter Healthcare, Edwards Division where he worked with heart valves, blood oximetry, blood plasmaphoresis, and cardiac output monitoring products. Mr. Peacock received his Law Degree from Santa Clara University, and his Bachelors in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California.
Richard L. Klein
President/ Director/ Founder
Mr. Klein has served as President and Director of Medlogics Device Corporation since co-founding it in August 2002. From October 2001 to May 2003, Mr. Klein also served as Corporate Counsel for Bioheart, Inc. and Director of Biopace, Inc. Prior to this, Mr. Klein was co-founder, COO, General Counsel and Director of MitraLife, Inc. (subsequently acquired by ev3, Inc.) from May 2000 to July 2001. Mr. Klein also served as Vice President and Chief Patent Counsel for Arterial Vascular Engineering, Inc. (subsequently acquired by Medtronic, Inc.) from June 1996 to June 2000. Prior to that, Mr. Klein was an attorney with the law firm of Fischbach, Perlstein and Yanny from May 1994 to May 1996. Mr. Klein also served as Assistant Patent Counsel at the California Institute of Technology and Jet Propulsion Laboratory from January 1989 through April 1994. Prior to that, Mr. Klein served as an Examiner with the United States Patent and Trademark Office from June 1982 to September 1988. Mr. Klein holds a B.S. degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a J.D. degree from the Southwestern University School of Law. Mr. Klein is a member of the California and District of Columbia bars, is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and is admitted to practice before numerous federal district and appellate courts.