Pepe Calle Gordo, Chairman of The Board
Mr. Calle Gordo brings 30 years of broad business and management experience in the medical device industry, having served in various executive and managerial roles at Biosensors, Abbott, Guidant and Eli Lilly.
Up to recently, he was Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Biosensors, where he last served as Executive Director and CEO. During his tenure, based in Singapore, he turned around the company’s operating performance, forged strategic alliances and worked with the largest shareholder to successfully privatize and delist the company in order to create a 1$Bn value global player in interventional cardiology.
He previously led the global team that developed Xience™, a family of drug eluting stents and market leader for the treatment of coronary artery disease while serving as Vice President and General Manager of Drug Eluting Stents, Vascular Intervention at Guidant based in California.
As Vice President of Abbott Vascular based in Brussels, he later managed the international operations of Abbott Vascular outside of the US and led globally the commercial introduction of MitraClip™, a percutaneous treatment for mitral valve repair.
Mr. Calle Gordo graduated from Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering.
Georg Börtlein, Board Member, CEO & Founder
Ex-founder of CoreValve
Georg Börtlein is the founder of HighLife and currently its President and CEO. Previously he spent 10 years with CoreValve, a company he co-founded in 2001 to develop a beating heart aortic valve replacement technology (TAVI). Georg acted as COO until the feasibility clinical study. He then participated in the further development of the technology and the clinical studies until CE-mark was obtained. The company was acquired by Medtronic in 2009 for $800+ million. In that period, he also co-founded several other medtech start-up companies in the cardiovascular space, one of which went public and another was acquired.
Having spent the first years of his career in the banking industry, he developed a strong financial background in addition to his technical skills. Georg is inventor in 30 patents.
Georg Börtlein graduated in 1991 as a mechanical engineer from Ecole Centrale Paris, France.
Antoine Papiernik, Board Member
General Partner at Sofinnova
Antoine Papiernik is a Managing Partner at Sofinnova Partners, which he joined in 1997. Antoine has been an initial investor and active board member in public companies like Actelion, ProQR, NovusPharma (then sold to CTI), Movetis (then sold to Shire), Mainstay, Pixium Vision and Stentys, which went public respectively on the Zürich stock exchange, the NASDAQ, the Milan Nuovo Mercato, the Belgium Stock Exchange, the Dublin Stock Exchange and EuroNext Paris, in Cotherix (initially NASDAQ listed, then sold to Actelion), CoreValve (sold to Medtronic), Fovea (sold to Sanofi Aventis) and Ethical Oncology Science (EOS, sold to Clovis Oncology). He has also invested in and is a board member of private companies ReCor, MD Start, Shockwave Medical, Reflexion Medical, Gecko Biomedical, SafeHeal, Rgenix and Corwave. Antoine has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. In 2012 and 2011, Antoine was selected by Forbes for its “Midas List” of the world’s top venture capital investors. Antoine is one of the only Europeans on the list, and one of the few life science investors as well.
Casey Tansey, Board Member
General Manager USVP
Casey Tansey joined USVP as a general partner in April 2005. A veteran of the medical device industry, Casey brings over 25 years of entrepreneurial, early-stage medical device and seasoned operating experience to USVP.
Casey’s extensive operations experience brings more to the table than strategic counsel — he adds empathy to that mix.
“As a CEO, it was important to me when board members really shared our passion and understood organization-building focused on improving healthcare for patients. CEOs need venture capitalists that leverage their network of contacts, help identify the best partners, and share the company’s vision. USVP takes this approach.”
Casey’s investment strategy is a lot like his strategy as a CEO: identify unmet clinical needs where patients are in need of new and improved products and services. At USVP, Casey focuses on the trend toward the miniaturization of devices and the development of minimally-invasive technologies that promise innovations in the delivery of medical products and services, especially in cardiovascular products, orthopedics, spinal care and neurology.
Casey’s passion is to strive for delivery of medical services with fewer traumas to the patient and improved quality of life. Innovations shaping this trend include minimally invasive technologies. During his tenure as CEO and President of Epicor Medical from 2001 to 2004, Casey, along with a dedicated team, pioneered a minimally invasive treatment for atrial fibrillation and transformed the company into a recognized market leader, and he led Epicor’s acquisition by St. Jude Medical.
Prior to Epicor, Casey was CEO and President of Heartport, a public company that helped pioneer minimally invasive cardiac surgery, which is now a Johnson & Johnson company. Before that, he was with Baxter Edward’s Cardiovascular Division for nearly ten years, holding various sales and marketing positions. During his tenure at Baxter, Casey was involved in launching innovative heart valve products that have grown to be the market leaders.
Casey serves on the Board of Directors for Heartflow, Inspire Medical, Intuity Medical, Neuros, and SentreHEART. In addition, he served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the World Heart Foundation, an organization dedicated to advancing humanitarian efforts in heart surgery worldwide through education and collaboration.
Casey holds a B.S. and M.B.A. from the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, CA. Casey has served on the boards of Epicor Medical and Heartport.
Olivier Litzka, Board Member
Partner at Andera Partners
ANDERA PARTNERS (formerly EdRIP, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners) is a leadingEuropean Private Equity House, managing more than €2 bn in Life Sciences Venture Capital,Growth Capital, LBO, and Sponsorless Mezzanine
Olivier is a partner in Andera Partners’ life sciences franchise constituted by its BioDiscoveryfunds. The team manages around Euro 700 m of assets. The latest fund BioDiscovery 5 wasclosed in January 2018 at Euro 345 m. As its predecessors, it targets investments in biotechand medtech companies in Europe and the US.
Professor Martin Rothman, Board Member, Chief Medical Officer
Ex-VP Medical Affairs Medtronic, interventional cardiologist
Dr. Rothman retired recently from his position as Vice President of medical affairs for coronary, structural heart and renal denervation, for Medtronic, based in Santa Rosa (CA), a position he held since 2010. He was involved in the development of the renal denervation program and the innovative Spyral™ renal denervation catheter, TAVR, and the Medtronic percutaneous mitral regurgitation program, including Twelve and development of its Intrepid TMVR product and associated clinical strategy.
Dr. Rothman trained as an interventional cardiologist in Bart Hospital Trust, UK. Then, as a world-renowned interventional cardiologist, he worked for the UK National Health Service for almost 40 years, with the last decade spent as director of cardiac research and development at the London Chest Hospital. He developed its interventional cardiology training program and was responsible for training about one-third of all the interventional cardiologists practicing in the UK today. He has also been a leading investigator in research involving drug-eluting coronary stents and cardiac stem-cell treatment, and helped develop intravascular ultrasound technology.
Arnd Kaltofen, Observer
Arnd is a Managing Partner of VI Partners focusing on Healthcare investments.
Arnd has collected a broad and long-standing experience in building and exiting ventures in the healthcare sector. He served as chairman and board director of companies such as Esbatech (acquired by Alcon), Kuros Biosurgery (reverse-IPO at SWX), Activaero (acquired by Vectura), or Ganymed Pharmaceuticals. In his previous career, he built a team dedicated to venture capital transactions in the healthcare industry for KPMG Corporate Finance. He gained his entrepreneurial experience in several Medical Device and Digital Health startups where he held various senior management positions in marketing, commercialization, and product development. As an MD he started his professional career in two university hospitals as an anaesthesiologist and in medical research.
In addition to being an MD, Arnd also holds an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate Business School, USA, and WHU Koblenz, Germany, as well as a Postgraduate Degree in Computer Sciences from TU Munich, Germany.
Arnd carries prime responsibility for the following portfolio companies: Altoida, Kuur Therapeutics, Inositec, JenaValve, Ventaleon, and Araris.
Marc-André Marcotte, Observer
Partner & Chief Operating Officer at Sectoral Asset Management
Mr. Marcotte joined Sectoral Asset Management in 2006 and was promoted to Managing Director in 2013. He is a Partner, responsible for leading Medical Technology private equity investments. In addition, he is overseeing the firm’s operations and he is a member of Sectoral’s Executive Committee. He has previously served as a director of Shockwave Medical Inc.
Prior to Sectoral, Mr. Marcotte worked at CryoCath Technologies (acquired by Medtronic), a company specializing in the development of products for the treatment of Atrial Fibrillation, as the Director of Quality and at Arterial Vascular Engineering (acquired by Medtronic) in Vancouver as an engineer for angioplasty catheters. Mr. Marcotte has over eight years of experience in the development of Medical Devices.
Mr. Marcotte graduated from Sherbrooke University in 1997 with a Bachelor of Engineering and completed a Master of Business Administration at HEC Montreal in 2003. He obtained his CFA charter in 2010.
Anne Osdoit, Observer
Partner, MD Start
As Partner at MD Start since early 2014, Anne is heavily involved in the fundraising, management and operational activities of the medtech company builder. She has been the CEO of SafeHeal (MD Start II’s first company) for 2 years, and is currently the CEO of Ablacare, two MD Start portfolio companies
Prior to joining MD Start, Anne spent 10 years developing Mauna Kea Technologies, a medical technology French start-up company with global operations, offering a disruptive “optical biopsy” technology. At Mauna Kea Technologies, Anne held various positions in clinical and regulatory development as well as marketing and sales support. She was also heavily involved in the different financing rounds as well as in the IPO process. She interfaced with the key opinion leaders and has an extensive network in the fields of endoscopy and surgery (digestive, pulmonary, and urological).
Anne is currently also Venture Consultant at Sofinnova, where she assists with medtech deal flow evaluation, due diligences on new deals and deal closing. She will be leaving this position upon closing of Sofinnova MD Start III.
She is an independent board member of FeetMe and Cardiologs Technologies, two French-based start-ups in the field of e-health and connected medical devices focusing on neurodegenerative and cardiology applications respectively.
Having lived and worked in hospital environments in the US, UK, and France, Anne can translate unmet medical needs into product concepts and integrate regulatory, clinical and market access input and constraints from all around the world in their development and funding.
Anne is a trained biomedical engineer from Ecole Polytechnique of Paris, France and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US. She holds additional degrees in Biostatistics and epidemiology applied to clinical trials (Université Pierre et Marie Curie), as well as Corporate Finance (London School of Economics).