Frank Fischer, Chairman of the Board, Neuropace

Sponsored by

Frank Fischer has more than 40 years of senior management experience in the medical device industry. He co-founded NeuroPace in Dec 1997, led the company as its President and Chief Executive Officer from January 2000 thru July 2019, served on its Board of Directors since inception and is currently Chairman of the Board. Prior to joining NeuroPace, Mr. Fischer was President and Chief Executive Officer of Heartport, Inc., a cardiac surgery company, from May 1998 until September 1999 and served on Heartport’s Board of Directors. Previously, Mr. Fischer was President and Chief Executive Officer and a director of Ventritex, Inc., a company that pioneered implantable cardiac defibrillators, from July 1987 until the sale of the company to St. Jude Medical, Inc. in 1997. Before joining Ventritex, he held various management positions at Cordis Corporation from 1977 to 1987 in the cardiac and neurosurgical device areas, serving most recently as President of the Implantable Products Division. Currently he is a member of the Board of Directors of Nevro, Inc., the Board of Trustees of both Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Babson College as well as the Board of Directors of the Epilepsy Foundation of America. Mr. Fischer holds B.S.M.E. and M.S. in Management degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

VC Healthtech Investing at NEA

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

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).

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.

Azin Parhizgar, Ph.D., President & CEO Claret Medical

Sponsored by

Dr. Parhizgar is an experienced and highly successful medical device industry executive and serial entrepreneur currently serving on a number of industry and academic board positions. In her five year tenure serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of Claret Medical, Inc., an embolic protection company, she transformed the company from an early stage ventured backed company to a successful revenue staged company with commercial sales in the US, EU and other markets in excess of $20m in revenue in 2018. She successfully transacted the company’s sale to Boston Scientific Corporation in late 2018 for cash proceeds of $270M.

Prior to joining Claret Medical, she served as the Chief Operating Officer of Conor Medsystems Inc., a reservoir-based drug eluting coronary stent company, which led to the acquisition of the company by Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson Company in 2007 for $1.3B. She spent one year post merger with Johnson & Johnson for successful integration of the companies.

Between 1996-2002, she held the position of Executive Vice President of Clinical, Regulatory, and Quality Engineering at Arterial Vascular Engineering (AVE), an innovative broad portfolio interventional cardiology, peripheral and endovascular company, which was acquired in year 2000 by Medtronic Inc., for $3.4B and was the foundation of the Vascular division of Medtronic. She spent two years at Medtronic post-merger in increasing roles & responsibilities leading to her position as Executive Vice President of Emerging Ventures and New Technologies.

Prior to AVE, Dr Parhizgar held management positions at J&J, CR Bard, and Summit technologies. Dr. Parhizgar has served as an advisor to emerging medical device technology companies including several Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board positions throughout her career.

Dr. Parhizgar has received both her Ph.D. in Cell, Gene therapy and Tissue Engineering and her M.Sc. in Biomechanical Engineering and Artificial Organ Design from Brown University, Providence, RI.

When and How to Talk to Investors and Partners About Your IP

Investors and strategic partners want to understand your intellectual property so they can assess your chances of advancing your technology in the market. How well-developed does your IP position need to be before you can open discussions? Exactly how much should you reveal? And what do you do when your IP is not patentable? Get the answers Tuesday, September 24 from Adam Schoen, Partner at the law firm Brown Rudnick.

The Full Picture: Why FDA Approval Depends on More Than Your Clinical Trial

Meeting endpoints in a successful clinical trial ensures that the FDA will approve a medical device, right? As it turns out, there’s more to the picture. Tony Fields was VP of R&D at Emphasys and COO at Claret Medical, and in his career he saw FDA deny approval for an Emphasys device that met all primary and secondary endpoints in a trial–but, conversely, approve a Claret device that failed to meet its endpoints. How can this be? What other factors might matter to FDA? Join us Thursday, September 12 to find out.

The Sixth Annual Rosenman Symposium

The Rosenman Symposium is the premier event for the San Francisco Bay Area’s health technology community. It is held annually in June at the UCSF Mission Bay campus. Join us to learn from leaders in the health technology industry, meet dynamic startups, and connect with hundreds of players in the Bay Area ecosystem.

 

Understanding IP Due Diligence from the Investor’s Point of View

Early-stage companies will have to obtain funding or go through an exit process at some point in time. Since intellectual property (IP) often represents the bulk of an early stage company’s assets, investors will typically conduct due diligence on the IP during their evaluation process. Key areas that are evaluated include ownership of the IP, strength of the company’s IP, and freedom-to-operate. Join us May 30 to get a primer on how to prepare for IP due diligence from Douglas Portnow and Piers Blewett from the IP law firm Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner.

Finding Unmet Needs in Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine

This is the first in a series of events in which we bring clinicians and medical device engineers to discover unmet needs in a specialized area of medicine. In this event physicians will describe how they treat conditions, some of the challenges they face in delivering quality medical care, and possible solutions; engineers will discuss what is feasible and suggest alternative approaches. Join us for an intensely interactive session focused on pulmonary and critical care medicine.