Driving breakthroughs in vascular implants

Eliane Schutte was appointed as Chief Executive Officer at Xeltis in 2018.

During her time as CEO, the Company has strengthened and expanded its strategy across vascular and valve applications and closed more than €70 million of funding, including strategic license transactions. Under her leadership, Xeltis began its pivotal trials to obtain market approvals. She initially joined Xeltis in 2015 as Chief Development Officer, leading the clinical trial program, product development strategy and regulatory.

Eliane has extensive expertise in global product development and regulatory affairs, with over 25 years in the medtech and biotech industries. Prior to Xeltis, she was Vice President for Global Product Development in peri-operative care at The Medicines Company, Chief Development Officer at Dutch-US biotech start-up Profibrix and Vice President for Regulatory Affairs and EU Operations at IsoTis Orthobiologics.

Eliane was included in the list of The Top 50 Healthcare Technology CEOs by the Healthcare Technology Report in 2021 and 2022.

Paulo Neves was appointed Chief Medical Officer of Xeltis in May 2022.

Paulo brings remarkable medical experience as a practicing cardiac surgeon and as a pioneering implanter of a number of cardiovascular medical devices, along with medical lead expertise from roles at medtech companies. Prior to joining Xeltis, Paulo served as Medical Director in Europe at California-based medical device company BioVentrix.

He is a cardiac surgeon at Hospital da Luz Arrábida; Vila Nova de Gaia, in Portugal and previously worked as a consultant for cardiovascular medical device companies, including Abbott, LivaNova and NeoChord.

A Fellow of the European Board of Cardiothoracic Surgery (FETCS) since 2016, Paulo has authored over 30 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals. He holds a Medical degree and MSc from the University of Coimbra in Portugal and Certificates of Advanced Studies in Cardiovascular Interventions from the University of Zurich and is currently an MBA candidate at Warwick Business School in the UK.

Alexander Goemans joined Xeltis as Chief Financial Officer in November 2021.

He brings to the company significant experience in strategy consulting, and investment and financial management, during which he completed numerous acquisitions, and raised over €300 million in equity and debt for private companies. Prior to Xeltis, Alexander served as CFO of miDiagnostics, a molecular diagnostics company.

He started his career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co., where he focused on M&A and private equity across a wide range of industries and geographies. Alexander obtained a MSc in Business Engineering from KULeuven and a MSc in Finance from the London School of Economics.

Luciën van Os was appointed Chief Operating Officer at Xeltis in August 2023, bringing more than 20 years of executive, operational and scaling experience in the medtech field.

Prior to joining Xeltis he held COO and CEO roles in Magstim (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation), Sphere Medical (in vivo blood diagnostics) and TMSi (EEG/EMG products), and led international development activities at Medtronic (Cardiac Pacing) and Gambro/Baxter (Dialysis).

He has served on the board of a number of medtech startups (including Bmeye, sold to Edwards, and Ventinova). With a background in Computer Engineering, prior to his executive roles he held various senior engineering positions in a broad range of disciplines at Ericsson and Philips.

Martijn Cox, PhD, has over 15 years’ experience in endogenous tissue restoration (ETR) in the cardiovascular system and has been one of the key contributors to the development of Xeltis’ technology.

Prior to Xeltis, Martijn co-founded and led QTIS/e, a startup spun off from the Eindhoven University of Technology, until its merger with Xeltis.

Under his technology leadership, Xeltis has set up numerous national and international research projects on cardiovascular tissue engineering and ETR with preeminent industrial and academic partners and progressed several of its restorative cardiovascular devices from early-stage to clinical-stage development.

Martijn is a co-inventor on more than 15 international patent families. He holds a PhD in cardiovascular tissue engineering and an MBA in Business Innovation from the TIAS School for Business and Society.

Jim Harrison joined Xeltis as Vice-President R&D in 2023, bringing with him over 30 years of experience in medical device design and development, specializing in cardiovascular implants and systems.

Jim has extensive experience in companies ranging in size from start-ups to multinationals and has also provided medical device consultancy. Prior to joining Xeltis, he led the development teams at Intact Vascular and Vesper Medical; progressing both companies through PMA approval and company acquisitions.

Jim is an inventor, with over 30 issued US patents. He is active in the scientific community through his association with the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM), American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and American Society of Materials International (ASM) / Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies (ASM – SMST).

Frans L. Moll is a professor of vascular surgery at the University Medical Center Utrecht, where he conducts clinical and academic work.

During his career to date, he has been actively involved in the research of minimally invasive endovascular vascular procedures. Some notable achievements include inventing the Moll-Ring Cutter for iliac and SFA remote-endarterectomy, being a member of the development team for the AneuRx stentgraft, inventing the Percutaneous Venous Valve Bio-Prosthesis which became the model for the percutaneous implantable aortic valve prosthesis (TAVI) and initiating the clinical application of stem-cells for patients with no-option CLI which resulted in a multicenter RCT, the JUVENTAS trial.

He was previously President of the Netherlands Surgical Resident Association, the Netherlands Vascular Surgery Society and the European Society for Vascular Surgery and Chairman of the Dutch Vascular Surgical Training program and the European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery.

Professor Moll is an honorary member and distinguished fellow of the American Society for Vascular Surgery, honorary member of the Society of Clinical Vascular Surgery, honorary corresponding member of the German Society of Vascular Surgery and Medicine, honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Thailand and Gold Medal of the Dutch Soc. of Surgery. He is an active program co-chair of Charing Cross, London and for years, an esteemed faculty member of the VEITH and LINC meetings in New York and Leipzig respectively. He has over 750 PubMed registered documents and more than 26.000 citations. In 2009, the Queen of the Netherlands made him Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau. Professor Moll graduated from the Medical School of the State University Utrecht, the Netherlands in 2003.

Peter A. Schneider, MD serves as Professor of Surgery in the Division of Vascular & Endovascular Surgery at University of California, San Francisco.

Dr Schneider received his MD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed vascular surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.

He has been the principal investigator for several major clinical trials, was previously President of the Western Vascular Society and VIVA and is the author of the 4^th edition of “Endovascular Skills,” published in 2019. During his career, Dr Schenider has started several companies and holds numerous patents.

Dr Kum is a Visiting Consultant at the Changi General Hospital Singapore, where he was previously the Director of Vascular Surgery at its Department of Surgery since 2015.

He also maintains his practice at the Novena Vascular and Varicose Vein Centre at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, Singapore. One of the pioneers in percutaneous deep arterialization and a keen innovator who is currently working on several disruptive technologies in the vascular space, Dr Kum’s interest and research revolves primarily around diabetic limb salvage interventions and wound care techniques.

He received his medical degree from the National University of Singapore in 2000 and subsequently embarked on his surgical training with the Royal College of Surgeons, obtaining his Master of Medicine and Fellowship to the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, Scotland in 2007.

In 2017, he was successfully certified Wound Specialist Physician by renowned American Board of Wound Management. Dr Kum has been appointed clinical lecturer to medical students in National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in 2004 and 2017, respectively.

Michael Mack, MD, FACC, is recognized to have played a key role in building the partnership between cardiac surgeons and interventional cardiologists in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

He was President of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in 2011 and currently serves on the American College of Cardiology Board of Trustees. A founding member of Cardiothoracic Surgery Associates of North Texas, Dr Mack also co-founded the not-for-profit Cardiopulmonary Research Science and Technology Institute in 1996.

He is currently the Medical Director, Cardiovascular Surgery at Baylor Health Care System.

An Interventional Cardiologist, Martin Leon, MD, is the Director at the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at Columbia University Medical Center/New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

As a leading cardiologist, Dr Leon has been the principal investigator in over 50 clinical trials, co-authored over 1,550 publications and performed over 10,000 interventional procedures. He has been Director or Co-Director of more than 100 international educational programs in areas of interventional cardiology and is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation.

Currently he also serves as Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories and is on the Executive Board of the Columbia New York-Presbyterian Heart Valve Center. Dr Leon is a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and Interventional Cardiology and has received 10 international career achievement awards.

Dr Gregory Fontana is the National Medical Director for Cardiovascular Research at the Hospital Corporation of America, Nashville, Tennessee.

He is also the Director and Chairman of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Cardiovascular Institute, Los Robles Hospital and Medical Centre, Thousand Oaks, California and Director of Cardiovascular Research at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, Nashville, Tennessee.

Dr Fontana, was President of the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery from 2015-2016 and is certified in Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Widely published, Dr Fontana is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and American Medical Association.

He also sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Academy of Cardiology. Dr Fontana has been recognized as one of ‘America’s Top Doctors’ each year between 2002-2014.

Patrick W. Serruys is Professor of Cardiology, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London. His previous roles include Professor of Interventional Cardiology at the Interuniversity Cardiological Institute of the Netherlands and Director of the Clinical Research Program of the Catheterization Laboratory, Erasmus University.

He is a Fellow of both the American College of Cardiology, and the European Society of Cardiology; and he sits on the scientific council of the International College of Angiology. Professor Serruys has authored over 3,375 publications, some of which have featured in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet.

Throughout his career, Professor Serruys has received several awards including the Wenkebach Prize of the Dutch Heart Foundation in 1997, the Gruentzig Award of the European Society of Cardiology in 2000 and the Lifetime Achievement Award, by the American College of Cardiology, in recognition of service and invaluable contributions in 2011.

Professor Thierry Carrel is Director of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at University Hospital Bern and has a special clinical interest in thoracic aorta surgery and congenital surgery, as well as surgical heart failure strategies.

He has authored over 650 peer-reviewed publications and is a member of the Editorial Board of several international journals including the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery and the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

Professor Carrel is well-versed in educating others in cardiovascular surgery and, in 2013, received the Da Vinci award of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery as best teacher of Europe.

Professor Rüdiger Lange is the Medical Director and Director of the Cardiovascular Surgery Department at the German Heart Centre, Munich. Professor Lange previously held the role of Director of the Department of Heart and Vascular Surgery at the same institution from 1999.

Through his career, Professor Lange’s research has focused on minimally invasive operation techniques, the reconstruction of heart valves and transcatheter procedures for valve implantation and reconstruction.

Educated at the University of Bonn and the University of Munich, Professor Lange underwent a two-year training period at Harvard Medical School, Boston. Author of a number of scientific publications, Professor Lange was awarded an honorary degree by Capital Medical University, Beijing, China in 2006. He was also awarded the Forum Prize of the German Surgical Society in 1991, the Ernst-Derra Prize in 1993 and the Hancock Editions-Prize in 1990 by the German Society of Thoracic, Cardiac and Vascular Surgery.

Professor Lange is an active member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, Cardiothoracic Surgery Network, European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and The Society of Thoracic Surgeons.

Francesco Maisano, MD is Chief of Cardiac Surgery Unit and Director of the Valve Center at San Raffaele Research Hospital, Milan.

He was previously Head of Cardiovascular Surgery at Zurich University Hospital and a full professor of cardiac surgery at the University of Zurich. He is recognized as an expert for minimally invasive valve surgery and widely considered as a representative of a new generation of cardiovascular surgeons.

Professor Maisano has a wealth of experience in transcatheter valve treatments and has been closely involved in the introduction of several new techniques and technologies into clinical practice in valvular heart disease.

Previously, Professor Maisano was Senior Cardiac Surgeon at San Raffaele Hospital, Milan and he also undertook a fellowship at the University of Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

Christian Spaulding, MD, FESC, FACC, is Professor of Cardiology at Paris-Descartes University and Director of the Interventional Cardiology Department at European Hospital Georges Pompidou.

He is a leading trainer and supervisor in general cardiology and interventional cardiology and a fellow of the European Society of Cardiology and of the American College of Cardiology. As a Director of Interventional Cardiology Department, Professor Spaulding has already created a lasting legacy by increasing the number of interventional procedures by 16% in 2013.

Over his career so far, he has performed over 500 procedures and supervised 900 percutaneous coronary intervention and 2,500 coronary angiography procedures yearly. His work has been published in over 100 peer-reviewed journals, including three as first author in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Professor Spaulding has served as principal investigator in numerous international trials of novel devices and methods of treatment.

Michael Colson has over 35 years of experience in the medical device industry, including leading large R&D organizations, internal venture groups, research/innovation groups, and minority investment/business development groups.

He founded MC Biomedical Consulting, LLC to support start-ups, established biomedical device companies and venture capital/equity investment groups focused on biomedical devices and diseases. Colson previously worked at Medtronic, as a Business Development Executive, and supported its R&D, including the Coronary/Structural Heart team.

Colson graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Master of Science in Biophysics.

Jean-Marie Lehn is co-winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in supramolecular chemistry, the science used as the basis for Xeltis’ self-healing implant technology.

He is recognized as a pioneer in supramolecular chemistry, a term he first coined. Professor Lehn is currently active on a number of scientific advisory boards, including those of Xeltis, Novartis Venture Fund and Reliance Industries Ltd.

He is the director of the Supramolecular Chemistry Laboratory at the Institute of Supramolecular Science and Engineering in Strasburg, France, and until recently headed the chemistry laboratory at the Collège de France. Professor Lehn has also served as a visiting professor at a number of prestigious institutions, including Harvard University, ETH Zürich and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Barcelona and Frankfurt. His work has been published in hundreds of articles in peer-reviewed chemistry literature.

He is a member of several National Academies of Sciences including those of France, the United States and Russia as well as the recipient of countless prizes and distinctions.

Egbert (Bert) Willem Meijer is Professor and Head of the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems at Eindhoven University of Technology.

He held a number of professorships at Eindhoven University of Technology, Radboud University Nijmegen and University of California, as well as a role at Philips Research Laboratories Eindhoven as research scientist in Molecular Materials.

Meijer attended 27 visiting professorships and named lectureships, including Distinguished Lecturer at Cornell University, and The Chemical Record Lecturer of the Chemical Society of Japan, Tokyo. He has received ten notable awards, including the 2017 Nagoya Gold Medal, Japan’s highest award for chemistry scientists and the 2010 AkzoNobel science award of the Royal Dutch Society of Science, which is presented in recognition of outstanding scientific contributions in the fields of chemistry and materials sciences.

Furthermore, Meijer is a member of a number of international advisory and editorial boards, including Advanced Materials and the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Richard Bianco is the Director of Experimental Surgery at the University of Minnesota, where he held a number of roles, including Senior Member of Graduate School Faculty (Biological Sciences), Director (Cardiovascular Surgical Research Laboratories) and Deputy Vice Chair for Research (Department of Surgery).

He is Professor of Surgery and Adjunct Associate Professor of Veterinary Population Medicine and Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Throughout his career, Bianco has held memberships and offices in 19 professional societies and is still actively involved in 16 of them, including The American Heart Association and the Heart Valve Society of America. He was Chair of the International Medical Devices Society from 2010 to 2012 and in 2012 received the Director’s Award from the Institute for Engineering in Medicine.

He has 97 peer-reviewed publications to his name, alongside over 55 presentations and abstracts, and is active on a number of committees including International Standards Cardiac Valve Committee, the Journal of Heart Valve Disease Scientific Advisory Board, and co-chairman of the Vascular Prosthesis Working Group.

Dr Gurtner is the chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Arizona. He is internationally recognized as a highly accomplished clinician and prolific researcher, author, inventor and entrepreneur.

He has been awarded more than $27 million in federal research funding and holds 35 patents. He has also founded three venture capital-backed life sciences companies. Dr Gurtner was previously at the Stanford School of Medicine, where he was the Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor of Surgery, co-director of the Hagey Laboratory for Pediatric Regenerative Medicine, Professor of bioengineering, professor of materials science and engineering, Executive Director of the Stanford Advanced Wound Care Center and inaugural Vice Chair for Innovation in the Stanford Department of Surgery. Gurtner’s lab focuses on developing translational research projects in the lab that can become commercialized to improve patient care.

These projects can range over a wide breadth of topics, such as wound healing, regeneration, and foreign body response, utilizing a wide range of cutting-edge technologies, including small molecule therapeutics, cellular therapies, smart electronics, and single cell transcriptomics.

Jeffrey Hubbell, PhD is Professor of Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise at the University of Chicago Molecular Engineering Institute.

Formerly a member of the chemical engineering faculty at University of Texas and at California Institute of Technology, Professor Hubbell was also Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and at the University of Zurich.

He additionally served as founding director of the Institute of Bioengineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne).

Hubbell is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, former president of the Society for Biomaterials and an elected fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. Hubbell has received a number of awards including the US National Science Foundation’s Presidential Young Investigator Award.

Director of Research at INSERM Unité 1026 BioTis, University of Bordeaux, Dr L’Heureux’s career began as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the American Heart Association at the Department of Bioengineering.

From there, he co-founded and was the Chief Scientific Officer at Cytograft Tissue Engineering for 15 years, leading to the first implantation of tissue engineered blood vessels in a human.

Dr L’Heureux’s expertise includes tissue engineering with a focus on vascular applications, human cell culture and extracellular matrix. His entrepreneurship has led him into advisory and consulting roles with companies including Xeltis.

He is affiliated with eight scientific societies including Tissue Engineering Regenerative Medicine International Society, International Society for Applied Cardiovascular Biology, the American Heart Association and the Cardio-Thoracic and Vascular Surgery AHA Scientific Council, among others.

Professor Frederick Schoen, MD, PhD, currently serves as Professor of Pathology and Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School; Executive Vice-Chairman, and Director of Cardiac Pathology, Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH); and BWH liaison to the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology.

Professor Schoen’s research contributions have been in the areas of host-biomaterial interactions, structure-function-pathology correlations in heart valve substitutes and other cardiovascular prostheses, calcification of bioprosthetic tissues, cardiovascular tissue engineering, heart transplantation, and the validation of animal models of human cardiovascular disease.

Professor Schoen has authored and co-authored over 450 manuscripts in journals and books. He serves and has served on many national and international academic and governmental advisory committees, grant review committees and editorial boards, and is consultant and scientific advisor to numerous medical device companies.

James Oberhauser is Senior Director, Device, Package, and Sterile Process Development at Gilead. Since joining in 2015 James has built and led a team responsible for developing medical devices to meet the needs of a growing pipeline of small molecule parenteral and biologics products.

Prior to joining Gilead, Dr. Oberhauser led a team at Abbott Vascular that developed the world’s first bioresorbable polymer stent to treat symptoms of coronary artery disease. In 2013, he was recognized with the Innovation Team Award from the Abbott Laboratories Volwiler Society. Dr. Oberhauser also served over six years on the faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia, studying structure-property relationships in polymer blends and composites. He holds 47 issued patents and has authored 22 peer-reviewed journal publications.

Dr. Oberhauser received his Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Davis, Master of Science from Stanford University, and Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, all degrees in chemical engineering. He also conducted postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology.