MANNY VILLAFANA

Founder, St. Jude Medical

Founder, Cardiac Pacemakers

Founder, ATS Medical

Manny has a substantial track record starting companies that develop and deliver successful products to the market.

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• Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. (CPI) revolutionized the pacemaker industry by introducing a long-life lithium iodine pacemaker, a technology still used today by 100% of the pacemaker/defibrillator market.  CPI is now owned by Boston Scientific.

• St. Jude Medical developed an innovative, mechanical, bi-leaflet heart valve that dramatically reduced the frequency of blood clots.  St. Jude is now part of Abbott Medical.

• ATS Medical further evolved the mechanical heart valve, introducing an open-pivot design and capturing a strong share of the market.  ATS is now owned by Medtronic.

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As a result, Manny has received numerous awards of recognition, including:

• The "Living Legend of Medicine" award from the World Society of CardioThoracic Surgeons.

• MDEA Lifetime Achievement Award.  (https://www.mddionline.com/manny-villafa%C3%B1a-relentless-risk-taker-and-enduring-entrepreneur)

• Inductee of the Minnesota Business Journal Hall of Fame and the Minnesota Science and Technology Hall of Fame.

PAUL LAVIOLETTE

Managing Partner, SV Health Investors
Former COO, Boston Scientific
Former President VC, Boston Scientific

Former President, International, Boston Scientific

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Paul joined SV in 2009 as a Venture Partner and in 2011 was made a Partner. Paul was promoted to Managing Partner & COO in 2014 and heads our medical device investments.

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Prior to SV, Paul built and ran medical device businesses for 29 years before joining SV Health Investors. Most recently he was Chief Operating Officer at Boston Scientific (BSC), an $8 billion medical device leader. During his 15 years at BSC, Paul served as Chief Operating Officer; Group President, Cardiovascular; President, Cardiology; Group President, Endosurgery; and President, International.

During his tenure, the company grew revenue over 20 times. Paul integrated two dozen acquisitions and led extensive product development, manufacturing and worldwide commercial organizations. Previously, Paul held marketing and general management positions at CR Bard and various marketing roles at Kendall (Medtronic).

Outside of SV, Paul serves as Chairman of the Medical Device Manufacturing Association and as Vice Chairman of the Innovation Advisory Board for the Partners Health System. Paul also served on the board of Advamed for 10 years and is a routine speaker at industry meetings.

Academic Credentials
BA, Psychology, Fairfield University; MBA, Boston College

DAVID NEUSTAEDTER

VP, Venture Capital, Medtronic

Frm VP, Director Venture Capital, Covidien

Frm VP, Director Venture Capital, Stryker

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As Vice President of Venture Capital at Medtronic, Dave works closely with Medtronic’s leadership to complete new venture capital investments in areas of strategic interest and socialize key developments at existing portfolio companies. Dave has completed a large number of investments over the years and serves or has served as a Director or Observer on approximately 20 Boards including superDimension, Idev, Medina, and Entellus.

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Prior to Medtronic, Dave served in similar roles at Covidien and Stryker. While at Covidien, he also led a process to prioritize white space opportunities for the company. Earlier in his career, as a healthcare-focused strategy consultant, Dave supported clients on decisions regarding acquisition opportunities and internal R&D prioritization across the medical device, diagnostic and biopharmaceutical industries. He received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of British Columbia, and an MBA from Yale University, and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

AMIR JAFRI

CEO, Immunicom

Former M&A and R&D Head, Devices, Cardinal Health

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Amir Jafri is the founder of Immunicom and has served as its President and Chief Executive Officer since the company’s inception in 2013. Amir has over 25 years of experience in healthcare technology and devices.

As a senior executive in Fortune 50 companies and his own startups, he has managed multi-billion-dollar products on a global basis and is highly experienced with global regulatory environments. He was COO at West Health Institute; VP/CTO, VP R&D and VP Operations at Cardinal Health managing products with $1B in annual revenue (NYSE: CAH); VP/General Manager Healthcare Division at Manpower Group, responsible for the healthcare practice nationwide across 35 locations (NYSE: MAN).

Prior to joining Manpower, Amir founded various healthcare startups that were subsequently acquired. He has successfully managed global businesses and has a track record of success in every business he has led. Amir serves on the Board of various healthcare technology startup companies and non-profit organizations. Amir received his Bachelors of Science Degree from Houston Baptist University with a double major in Chemistry and Biology and a minor in History. He attended medical school at the University of Texas but pursued an entrepreneurial and corporate path.

TAK CHEUNG

Principal, NEA

Tak joined NEA in 2018 as a Principal on the healthcare team. He focuses on medical device investments.

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Prior to NEA, Tak was a Venture Partner at Merieux Development Venture Fund where he led all phases of investment for healthcare startups, including sourcing, diligence and investment approvals. Tak also co-founded Lexington Medical, a commercial-stage medical device startup in the gastrointestinal surgery space. Prior to Merieux and Lexington, Tak was VP of Business Development for the Global Surgical Division at Bausch & Lomb, and was responsible for all business development efforts in the ophthalmic surgical division. Tak has held various corporate and business development leadership roles at Edwards Lifesciences in the Heart Valve Therapy Division and Advanced Medical Optics (acquired by Johnson & Johnson).

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Tak received a BS with Honors in Engineering and Applied Science from the California Institute of Technology, an MD from the University of California, Irvine, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

SHAHID SHAH

"The Healthcare IT Guy"
Former CTO of CTS, Cardinal Health

CEO, Citus Health

Shahid Shah is an internationally recognized and influential healthcare IT thought leader and multiple patent awardee who is known as “The Healthcare IT Guy'' across the Internet. He is a serial entrepreneur and technology strategy advisor to many federal agencies and winner of Federal Computer Week’s coveted “Fed 100″ award given to IT experts that have made a big impact on the US government. 

Shahid has architected and built multiple clinical solutions over his almost 30-year career. He helped design and deploy electronic health record solutions across thousands of sites for the American Red Cross. He is a serial entrepreneur who has cofounded and exited two Electronic Health Records companies and co-founded and is currently scaling a third EHR company focused on digital front door, patient engagement, and remote patient monitoring. He’s designed large professional collaboration sites and, as an ex-CTO for CardinalHealth’s CTS medical devices division (now part of Becton Dickinson), he helped design advanced clinical interfaces for hospital based medical devices. Shahid also has served as a senior technology strategy advisor to NIH’s and TATRC’s SBIR/STTR program helping startups commercialize their healthcare applications.

For the past 30 years Shahid has held the positions of CEO, CTO, VP of Technology, Chief Software Architect, or Enterprise Architect at large enterprises. His technology expertise includes AI, machine learning, conversational user experiences, service-oriented and event modeling architectures, and trust networks backed by immutable databases and blockchain. His healthcare focus starts with an emphasis on e-health, EMRs, HL7/FHIR-based data integration, and legacy modernization but his passions also include innovation evaluation, tech due diligence, real world evidence collection, and clinical trial design.

These days, as publisher of Medigy.com, he’s focused on trying to figure out how transparent, crowd-sourced, and credentialed peer reviews can separate real healthcare innovations from marginal or fake ones. Medigy.com is an effort to bring some of the transparency we have seen in online product reviews to medical device, digital health, and life sciences innovation. At its best, Medigy can help identify innovations worth investing in…or innovations that are not likely to produce the outcomes we desire.

STEVE PRINCE

Founder, CRISI sold to BD
SVP, Cardinal Health
VP, Carefusion
CMO, Immunicom
 

Steve is a results-oriented marketing/sales, strategy and business development executive with a 30-year track record of successfully building new growth opportunities and global markets for medical technology companies of all sizes.  He began his career with GE Healthcare where he worked in hospitals across the U.S., Europe and Asia developing the market for nascent technology called positron emission tomography (i.e. PET Imaging), which today is a $2.5 billion global industry. After serving in various VP level roles in Gen-Probe, Cardinal Health, and CareFusion, Steve co-founded CRISI Medical Systems which won the 2015 Frost & Sullivan “North American Award for New Product Innovation”, the 2016 “Medical Design Excellence Award (MDEA)” global competition for drug-delivery devices, and was recently acquired by Becton, Dickinson and Co.
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Steve received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from Michigan Tech University, his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Marquette University, and his MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.  He has over a dozen issued US & international patents.