Mike Carusi

General Partner, Lightstone Ventures

Mike is a General Partner and Team Leader of Lightstone Ventures (LSV) and focuses on investments in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors. He is based in the firm's Menlo Park, CA office, where he also serves as a General Partner at Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV). His representative investments include Altura Medical (acquired by Lombard), Ardian (acquired by Medtronic), Cala Health, EndoGastric Solutions, Nuvaira, MicroVention (acquired by Terumo), Plexxikon (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo), PowerVision, Second Genome and Willow.

David Cassak

Co-Editor-in-Chief, MedTech Strategist

David Cassak has more than 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Cassak co-founded Windhover Information Inc., and also served as Vice President, Content, and Managing Director, Medical Devices for Elsevier Business Intelligence, a Reed Elsevier Company which included the publications In Vivo, Startup, RPM Report, Medtech Insight, The Gray Sheet and The Pink Sheet.

Chris Cleary

Vice President of Corporate Development, Medtronic

Chris Cleary has been Vice President of Corporate Development for Medtronic since 2014. During this period, he has led more than 40 acquisitions with consideration of $56 billion, including notable deals like Covidien, NGC, Twelve, Smith & Nephew TruClear, HeartWare, Mazor Robotics and Epix. Chris also led the sale of portions of Medtronic’s non-strategic medical supplies business to Cardinal for $6 billion.

Andrew Cleeland

Chief Executive Officer, Fogarty Institute for Innovation

Andrew is a seasoned executive with 30 years in the medical device industry in both the private and public sectors. Prior to joining the Fogarty Institute, he was vice president and general manager of Medtronic’s (MDT:NYSE) Transcatheter Mitral Valve business following its 2015 acquisition of Twelve Inc., where he was president and CEO. Prior to Twelve, he was president and CEO of Ardian Inc., the pioneer of renal denervation for hypertension, heart failure and other associated disorders, which was also acquired by Medtronic in 2011. Together these two acquisitions totaled $1.5B.

Chris Coleman

Executive Vice President & Head of Business Banking, First Republic Bank

Chris joined First Republic Bank 11 years ago, first serving as Deputy Chief Credit Officer until 2012 when he became Co-Head of Business Banking and then Head of Business Banking in 2015. Prior to First Republic Bank, Chris served as Regional Manager at City National Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, where he started the bank’s Life Sciences Industry Practice and also was a Senior Credit Officer. He began his banking career 30 years ago with Citi Group, working as a Relationship Manager. Chris earned his MBA in Finance and Marketing from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He also received a Certificate in Public Management while in graduate school there. Chris earned his Bachelors degree in in History from Stanford University as well. Chris is a National Trustee for the Foundation Fighting Blindness and a Member of the Board of Directors for Disability Rights Advocates.

Paul Conover

Partner, Knobbe Martens

Paul N. Conover is a partner in Knobbe Martens’ Orange County, CA office. He leads teams of attorneys in strategically obtaining patents domestically and internationally, performing due diligence in transactions involving intellectual property, developing and implementing licensing strategies, performing market clearance and engineering design-around efforts, and enforcing patents and defending against patents in the pre-litigation stages. Mr. Conover works with clients in multiple areas of technology, including many types of medical devices, optics, and consumer products.  He has spoken at many events on intellectual property topics, including in Brazil, India, and the United States.  He has also published on many intellectual property topics, including regarding the recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court on patent law.

Mark Deem

Managing Partner, The Foundry

Mark Deem joined The Foundry at its inception in 1998. In addition to spearheading the research and invention process on new clinical opportunities, Mr. Deem leads the early stage effort in The Foundry's new companies until the company's CEO and Senior Staff is hired. Prior to joining The Foundry, Mr. Deem worked in various research and development roles with Ventrica, Micro-Interventional Systems, Devices for Vascular Intervention, Cordis Corporation and the USCI Division of C.R. Bard. Mr. Deem has spent over twenty-five years in the design, testing and manufacture of medical devices. He is a co-inventor on over 150 issued and pending U.S. patents. Mark earned his B.S. degree in biomedical engineering from Boston University.

Jonas Funk

Managing Director & Partner, LEK

Jonas Funk is a Managing Director and Partner in L.E.K. Consulting’s Chicago office. He has more than 17 years of experience at L.E.K. and has directed hundreds of consulting engagements, primarily focused on growth strategy and mergers and acquisitions support in the medtech and life sciences industries.

Kate Garrett

Managing Partner, Sonder Capital

Kate is a Managing Partner at Sonder Capital and Assistant Director of the Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship. Prior to Sonder Capital she was CEO of Ciel Medical, which she co-founded out of her Biodesign Fellowship in 2012. Ciel focused on the need to reduce Ventilator Acquired Pneumonia in ventilated patients, a problem which costs the US healthcare system billions of dollars annually. Ciel was acquired by Vyaire Medical in 2017, and Kate transitioned to Vice President of Airway Technologies at Vyaire.

Kelli Hallas

Executive Vice President, Emerson Consultants Inc.

Kelli Hallas is executive vice president for Emerson Consultants Inc. Her expertise is in all aspects of clinical trial reimbursement, securing new codes for emerging technologies including during the clinical trial phase, healthcare policy, and government and commercial-payer focused initiatives. Hallas is a representative of the International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgery’s Coding and Reimbursement Advisory Board and has assisted with numerous CPT code submissions, participated in policy and guideline development, and has administered RVU and utilization surveys.

Steven Hochberg

Partner, Deerfield Management

As a Partner on the Private Transactions team at Deerfield, Steve joined Deerfield in 2013 to work on structured transactions in Deerfield’s Private Design Funds. Steve has been a founder and manager of healthcare companies for more than 20 years. Since 2004, Steve has managed Ascent Biomedical Ventures, a leading venture capital firm he co-founded focused on early stage investment and development of biomedical companies. Since 2011, Steve has been the Chairman of the Board of Continuum Health Partners until its merger with Mount Sinai in 2013, where he is the Senior Vice Chairman of the Mount Sinai Health System, a non-profit healthcare integrated delivery system in New York City with over $5 Billion in annual revenues. He graduated from the University of Michigan and earned his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

David Hochman

CEO, Orchestra BioMed, Inc.

David Hochman has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Orchestra BioMed since May 2018. Since 2006, he served as Managing Partner of Orchestra Medical Ventures, an investment firm focused on creating high-impact medical device therapies.

Curtis Huffmire

Partner, Knobbe Martens

Curtis R. Huffmire is a partner in Knobbe Martens’ Orange County, CA office.  His practice focuses on patent litigation, prosecution, counseling and licensing.  He has experience in mechanical, medical, and electronic devices, systems and methods. Mr. Huffmire represents clients in a wide range of technologies, including medical devices and procedures, vehicle systems, surveillance systems, electro-mechanical systems, and materials engineering. Mr. Huffmire is a member of the litigation team representing clients in the enforcement of their intellectual property rights and responding to the allegations of their competitors.  Mr. Huffmire also works with clients to obtain patent protection on their new products and ideas.  His practice includes counseling clients regarding patent infringement, patent validity, licensing, and right-to-practice issues.

Noam Krantz

Vice President, Business Development, Ethicon

Noam Krantz leads Business Development at Ethicon Inc, Johnson & Johnson’s surgical division (about $9 billion of worldwide revenue). Noam is continuously developing and executing license and acquisition strategies for the business and across the Medical Device sector. He sits on the Ethicon Global Management Board and leads the Medical Device Deal Committee. He has been in this role since 2011. He served on the company’s Asia Pacific management board from 2012-2105.

Uday Kumar

Founder, President & CEO, Element Science, Inc.

Uday is a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist (EP) by training, and the Founder, President, and CEO of Element Science, Inc., a San Francisco-based company developing a wearable defibrillator that addresses the risk of sudden cardiac death. He was also the founder of iRhythm Technologies, Inc., a publicly traded digital healthcare company (Nasdaq: IRTC), where he served as a board member and chief medical officer from founding through commercialization of its Zio® Patch cardiac monitoring device. Uday is an Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University and was the Director of Stanford Biodesign’s Global Fellowships (India and Singapore), prior to becoming Director of Strategy. He also helps lead the Center’s Diversity and Inclusion efforts. He was a Biodesign Innovation Fellow at Stanford, a cardiac EP and cardiology fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, and an internal medicine resident at Columbia University. Uday received his MD and BA from Harvard University.

Stephen Levin

Co-Editor-in-Chief, MedTech Strategist

Stephen Levin served as Executive Editor & General Counsel at Windhover Information followed by Editor-in-Chief of Medical Devices for Elsevier Business Intelligence, where he directed the company’s editorial coverage of the medical device industry. Prior to joining Windhover, Stephen was Senior Counsel to the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations while also participating in other Senate investigations including the Whitewater inquiry.

Angela MacFarlane

Managing Member, ForSight Labs; CEO, Voyant Biotherapeutics

Ms. Macfarlane currently serves as CEO of Voyant Biotherapeutics, LLC, an early stage biotech company dedicated to targeted genetic therapies to solve age-related macular degeneration.  She founded and also serves as a Managing Partner of ForSight Labs, LLC an ophthalmic incubator formed in 2005 in partnership with preeminent ophthalmic surgeon, Dr. Eugene de Juan, Jr. MD, and The Foundry. Previously,  Ms. Macfarlane served as Chief Technology Counsel to The Foundry, a medical technology incubator, and Technology Counsel for Thomas J. Fogarty, M.D., a renowned physician/entrepreneur where she participated in formation and/or development of 9 companies.  She previously served on the senior management teams and counsel at TransVascular, Inc. (acquired by Medtronic), AneuRx, Inc. (acquired by Medtronic), and VidaMed Inc. (through IPO). Ms. Macfarlane is an inventor on 25 U.S. issued patents and received her BA in Business Administration from San Francisco State University, and her J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law.  She currently serves on the board of Voyant Biotherapeutics,  ForSight VISION6, Inc.,  RenovoRx, and the Fogarty Institute for Innovation.  She is a host mentor in the Ferolyn Powell Leadership Program where she is passionate about inspiring and instilling the practice of lifelong, high-impact mentorship that changes lives.

Josh Makower

General Partner, New Enterprise Associates

Josh Makower has dedicated his career to the creation of medical technologies that improve quality of life for patients. He is the founder of ExploraMed Development, LLC, a medical device incubator based on the West Coast. He is also a general partner with New Enterprise Associates (NEA), where he leads investing activity in the medical device and health technology arena. He holds over 300 patents and patent applications for medical devices in the fields of orthopedics, ENT, cardiology, general surgery, drug delivery, women’s health, and urology. He earned an MBA from Columbia University, an MD from the New York University School of Medicine, an SB in mechanical engineering from MIT and is a Member of the College of Fellows of The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Casey McGlynn

Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Casey McGlynn is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. In 1990, Casey McGlynn formed the life sciences practice at the firm, and today, it has one of the largest practices focused on medtech, healthtech, and biotech companies in the country. Casey has formed, represented, sold, and taken public many of the most important medical device companies founded over the last 30 years.Over much of his career, Casey has participated in forming and managing several small funds, all of which have been top quartile performers. In 2005, he founded Life Science Angels (LSA), an angel organization focused on investing in medtech, healthtech, and biotech companies. Since its formation, LSA has invested over $50 million in more than 40 companies that have received an additional $600+ million in follow-on funding from VCs.

Christos Monovoukas

VP, Global M&A / Business Development, Olympus

Christos leads Olympus’ Global M&A function. Christos and his team is responsible for coordinating the identification, assessment and execution of business development transactions including acquisitions, VC/minority investments, divestitures, licensing deals, co-development agreements and joint ventures. LinkedIn

Joe Mullings

Founder, Mullings Group

Joe founded The Mullings Group in 1992, and since then, the company has emerged as one of the country’s leading search firms. His progressive talent acquisition strategies have been used to build out many successful start-up companies as well as Fortune 50 companies throughout the world.He has been featured on CNBC, in The Wall Street Journal, MX Magazine, MDDI Magazine and in various other publications concerning the search and staffing industry. Joe is the “first-mover” using a digital storytelling approach to talent acquisition. His Precruit® strategy is the first of its kind in the talent acquisition world. It helps attract clients by utilizing a hybrid approach to executive search and digital media to tell a company’s hiring narrative story. His organization has placed more than 5,000 professionals in the Life Sciences industry with over 500 client companies.

Justin Noznesky

Senior Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, AtriCure

Justin Noznesky joined the AtriCure in January 2014. He is responsible for global marketing activities, health economics, mergers, acquisitions and business partnerships. Prior to joining AtriCure, Mr. Noznesky served as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Vital Images, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation. Prior to Vital Images, Mr. Noznesky worked at UnitedHealth Group in Corporate Finance, and at Arthur Andersen as a senior auditor. Mr. Noznesky earned a B.A. from Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Duke Rohlen

Founder & CEO, Ajax Health

Duke Rohlen serves as Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Ajax Health, a holding company that invests in and operates life science companies. Mr. Rohlen has strong experience in healthcare technology innovation, finance, and strategic leadership. Over the last 10 years, Mr. Rohlen has raised over $300 million in equity financing and sold three medical device companies for a combined enterprise value of over $1.3 billion. In addition to his role at Ajax, Mr. Rohlen currently serves as Chairman and CEO of Ablacon. Previously, Mr. Rohlen served as Chairman and CEO of EPIX (acquired by Medtronic), a Director of Entellus Medical (NASDAQ:ENTL), and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School. Prior to EPIX, Mr. Rohlen served as Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Spirox, Inc (sold to Entellus Medical) and Co-founder and CEO of CV Ingenuity (sold to Covidien, now Medtronic). Before CV Ingenuity, Mr. Rohlen served in a variety of roles at FoxHollow Technologies prior to being named President. At FoxHollow, Mr. Rohlen helped drive annual sales to ~$200.0 million, helped the Company through an IPO, conceived of and structured a $300.0 million collaboration with Merck Pharmaceuticals, and ultimately led the sale of the company to EV3 (now Medtronic) for $780.0 million in 2008.

Renee Ryan

CEO, Cala Health

Renee Ryan has 25 years of building category-creating healthcare companies. She led the medical technology investments for Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JJDC) on the West Coast and Asia Pacific for 8 years. While at J&J, she made over 15 new investments, including the Series A for Cala Health. Previously, she was a healthcare investment banker at RW Baird, Jefferies and Goldman Sachs.

Amr Salahieh

Co-Founder & CEO, Shifamed

Amr Salahieh is a seasoned entrepreneur with nearly 30 years of experience in the medical technology industry. Amr is the founder of Shifamed LLC, a highly-specialized medical innovation hub focused on developing advanced solutions that get to market faster, reduce risk, increase impact, and forge a path toward a world where all people are able to lead longer, healthier lives. Since its inception in 2009, Shifamed has successfully exited Maya Medical, Kalila Medical and Apama Medical, and has several other companies currently under incubation. Prior to founding Shifamed, Amr founded Sadra Medical, a percutaneous aortic valve replacement company, which was sold to Boston Scientific in 2011 and co-founded Embolic Protection, Inc (EPI) which was sold to Boston Scientific in 2001. Amr is the inventor and/or co-inventor on over 100 granted and over 140 published US patent applications. He holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

Michael Simon

CEO, PRIA Healthcare

Mike Simon is the founder and CEO of PRIA, which leverages a centralized, data-driven communication strategy to build patient access and convince insurers to cover innovative medical devices. Simon previously worked in the sales field selling spinal implants for Johnson & Johnson. He founded PRIA after witnessing a decline in the spinal medical sales market as a result of insurers denying medically necessary procedures.

Stephen Sweeny

Senior Director, Corporate Development, Medtronic

Aly Talen

Co-Founder & Sr Vice President Business Development, genae

Aly is a thoroughbred clinical researcher with a distinct focus on medical devices. She started her research career as a Clinical Advisor at the Spectranetics Corporation (now Royal Philips, NYSE: PHG) in 1998. She founded the CRO ‘Talen Clinical Trial Management’ in 2001 which led to genae in 2005. The latter transformed to a recognized global services provider for the medical industries.

Todd Usen

CEO, Activ Surgical

Accomplished and seasoned leader with more than 25 years of medical device and healthcare experience. Proven track record of leading, developing and executing on commercialization strategies and driving market development initiatives to deliver profitable growth. Previously was the President of the Medical Systems Group at Olympus, President of Orthopedics at Smith & Nephew, and Vice President at Boston Scientific.

Paul Yock

Founder & Director, Stanford Biodesign

Paul Yock is the Martha Meier Weiland Professor of Medicine and founding co-chair of Stanford’s Department of Bioengineering, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is also founder and director of the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. Paul has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications, chapters and editorials, two textbooks, and over 55US patents. He is internationally known for his work in inventing, developing, and testing new devices, including the Rapid Exchange ™ stenting and balloon angioplasty system, which is now the primary system in use worldwide. He also invented the fundamental approach to intravascular ultrasound imaging and founded Cardiovascular Imaging Systems (CVIS), later acquired by Boston Scientific. Recent awards include the Transcatheter Therapeutics (TCT) Career Achievement Award, the American College of Cardiology Distinguished Scientist Award, and two lifetime achievement awards from the National Academy of Engineering: the 2018 Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education; and the 2019 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize for “outstanding bioengineering achievement for innovations leading to widespread adoption of percutaneous coronary intervention”.