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Transformational Innovation

Mission

Elixir Medical is committed to transforming care of patients with heart and vascular disease through innovation.

Since 2005, the company has continually sought to improve the treatment of vascular disease with:

  • Drug-eluting coronary stent systems (DES)
  • Fully resorbable drug-eluting scaffold systems (BRS)
  • Drug-eluting coronary bioadaptor systems

Its latest innovation — the DynamX™ Coronary Bioadaptor System — is designed to be a significant advancement beyond drug-eluting stents (DES).

Elixir Medical’s innovations are designed to make a meaningful change in patients’ lives. The company does not simply want to engineer a better medical device. Saving lives and helping patients enjoy their daily life is what drives us every day.

Management Team

Motasim Sirhan, Elixir Medical CEO, developing Treatment of Vascular Disease
Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Motasim Sirhan
Vinayak Bhat, President & COO of Elixir Medical, developing Treatment of Vascular Disease
President & Chief Operating Officer

Vinayak Bhat, PhD
John Yan, Elixir Medical Chief Technical Officer, developing Treatment of Vascular Disease
Chief Technical Officer

John Yan
Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Motasim Sirhan

Motasim Sirhan founded Elixir Medical to develop innovations that transform patients’ lives. He previously founded Avantec Vascular, co-founded Maya Medical, and served on the board of Apama Medical. Previously, Motasim led several first product categories for Guidant Corporation including the RX Perfusion PTCA catheter, the PET balloon technology and the market leading Multi-link stent. He is an inventor or co-inventor on 35 issued and pending patent or patent applications. He was named in Silicon Valley Business Journal’s “30 under 30.” Motasim holds an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas and Arlington, an M.S. in Management from the University of Southern California, and a dual B.S. degree in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.

President & Chief Operating Officer

Vinayak Bhat, PhD

Vinayak Bhat is a co-founder and serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of Elixir Medical. Vinayak was previously the Vice President & General Manager at Avantec Vascular Corporation where he was part of the management team that secured the sale of the company to Japan based Goodman Co. Ltd. Previously, he has held several R&D leadership positions at Guidant Corporation (currently Abbott Vascular). He holds more than 40 US/EU patents, has over 25 pending applications and has published many peer-reviewed papers. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Bombay, India; and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University, North Carolina.

Chief Technical Officer

John Yan

John Yan is a co-founder and brings more than 30 years of experience in catheter-based medical device research and development to his role as CTO at Elixir Medical, with an expertise in engineering and application of degradable and non-degradable biomaterials. Previously, John served as Director of R&D for Avantec Vascular, and has held R&D and engineering roles at Cardiac Pathways (catheter-based electrophysiology devices), Guidant (coronary stents), Ohmeda (critical care monitoring and therapies) and Mentor (reconstructive and cosmetic implants). John holds 53 U.S. patents and has been extensively published in peer reviewed cardiovascular journals. He holds an M.S. in Bioengineering from Clemson University and a B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego.

Executive Vice President, International

Alaeddin Ahram
Richard Castro, EVP of Elixir Medical, developing Treatment of Vascular Disease
Executive Vice President, Finance & Administration

Richard Castro
Executive Vice President, Clinical Research

Candace Elek
Howard Huang, EVP, R&D, developing Treatment of Vascular Disease
Executive Vice President, Research & Development

Howard Huang
Andrew Kramer, EVP, Operations, Elixir Medical, developing Treatment of Vascular Disease
Executive Vice President, Operations

Andrew Kramer
Executive Vice President, Global Marketing

Alex Nepogodiev
Executive Vice President, International

Alaeddin Ahram

Alaeddin (Ala’) Ahram has more than 25 years of global experience in the medical device industry. He has lived and worked in 7 countries, including Kuwait, USA, UAE, Lebanon, Switzerland, India, and China, and has a successful career in global commercial leadership roles. Prior to joining Elixir Medical, Ala’ held several executive roles at Smith & Nephew including Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Greater China based out of Shanghai and Senior Vice President of Advanced Surgical Devices business, emerging markets, based out of Dubai. Before joining Smith & Nephew, he held progressive roles in Medtronic, including, Vice President, Cardiovascular, International; Vice President, Acquisition Integration Activities, Europe and Central Asia; and Head of International Commercial Operations, Medtronic Invatec. Alaeddin holds a Master’s degree in Bio-engineering from Arizona State University.

Executive Vice President, Finance & Administration

Richard Castro

Richard Castro brings over 20 years of executive finance and administrative experience to the company. He previously served as Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations at Arstasis, Inc. Prior to that, Rich served as Vice President of Finance and Administration at LendingClub, Inc. (NASDAQ: LC) and similar roles with Corsair Memory, Inc., The Ravix Group, Cohesion Technologies (NASDAQ: CSON), MadeToOrder.com, Global Village Communication (NASDAQ: GVIL) and Caere Corporation (NASDAQ: CAER). Rich has facilitated the closing of two strategic acquisitions. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and a three-time recipient of the AF Commendation Medal. Rich has a B.S. Commerce in Accounting from the University of the Philippines.

Executive Vice President, Clinical Research

Candace Elek

Candace Elek brings to Elixir Medical 18 years of global clinical trial experience managing the strategic planning and operational execution for pre-approval and post-market clinical programs. She has managed a diverse global portfolio of 50+ studies of all designs and phases in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining Elixir, Candace served as Director, Clinical Research at Abbott Medical Devices, where she spent 8 years dedicated to clinical research for innovative cardiovascular products such as XIENCE, ABSORB and MitraClip. Additionally, Candace spent several years as a clinical research management consultant for multiple medical device companies in the Bay Area. She has provided clinical expertise to support regulatory approvals around the word including the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific. Candace holds a B.S. from University of California, Davis, and an M.S. from San Jose State University.

Executive Vice President, Research & Development

Howard Huang

Howard Huang brings more than 20 years of research and development experience in stent and implantable device development to Elixir Medical. He has contributed to the development of each of the Company’s commercialized products, and believes in fostering an environment of hands-on experimentation, discovery and engineering at every level of the R&D organization. Howard has served in several manufacturing, R&D engineering and leadership roles at Guidant Corporation, Abbott Vascular Devices and Alvesta. He received his Mechanical Engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Executive Vice President, Operations

Andrew Kramer

Andrew Kramer has over 20 years of experience in the medical device field. Previously, he served as Vice President of R&D at Apneon, where he developed multiple implantable devices and surgical procedures. Prior to that, Andrew served as Vice President of Operations for Avantec Vascular. There, he was responsible for building the operations team to successfully support the commercial launch of several coronary dilatation catheters and stent delivery systems. His career includes several management positions at CardioGenesis, a developer of devices for the treatment of ischemic cardiac disease, and Origin Medsystems, a developer of laparoscopic surgical devices. Andrew holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego.

Executive Vice President, Global Marketing

Alex Nepogodiev

Alex Nepogodiev has more than 20 years of leadership experience in successfully developing new markets and therapies in interventional cardiology, structural heart, and endovascular businesses worldwide. He served as Divisional Vice President of Global Marketing for Abbott Vascular, where he was responsible for the long-term strategy and marketing of the division’s coronary, endovascular, imaging and physiology portfolios.  Prior to that, Alex led the global marketing function for Abbott Structural Heart and its portfolio of transcatheter valve and congenital heart disease technologies, with a major focus on market development. He has also held roles of increasing responsibility at Medtronic, where he contributed to the development and launch of multiple generations of drug-eluting stents and other vascular technologies. Alex holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Western Michigan University and an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.

Investors

Elixir Medical is a private company. Its lead investor is The Invus Group. The evergreen equity investment firm has over $8 billion under management and offices in New York, Paris and Hong Kong.

Invus has been a committed partner of Elixir Medical since it was founded. Invus invests in visionary entrepreneurial teams and empowers them to transform their industries by taking risks, building sustainable competitive advantage and maintaining a long-term perspective.

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