Protembis GmbH, a privately-held emerging cardiovascular medical device firm, announced the appointment of experienced and serial entrepreneur and medical device executive Azin Parhizgar as an Independent Member and Chairwoman of the Board of Directors. Azin is committed to the embolic protection field after her recent successes with Claret Medical.
What is Azin’s industry expertise?
During her five years as President and CEO of Claret, Azin nurtured the company from its infancy to successful revenue generation with commercial sales in the U.S., Europe and other markets leading to a successful $270m exit of the company to Boston Scientific Corporation.
Azin is currently also the Chairwoman of CVPath Institute, a Senior Venture Partner at 415 Capital, and a Board member at InnovHeart, CroíValve, Soundbite Medical Solutions, Moray Medical, among others. Prior to Claret Medical, Azin served as the Chief Operating Officer of Conor Medsystems, which led to the acquisition of the company by Johnson & Johnson.
Previously she held the position of Executive VP for Arterial Vascular Engineering (AVE), which was acquired by Medtronic. She spent two years at Medtronic post-merger expanding her roles and responsibilities leading to her position as Executive VP of Emerging Ventures and New Technologies. Azin received both her Ph.D. in Cell, Gene and Tissue Engineering and her M.Sc. in Biomechanical Engineering and Artificial Organ Design from Brown University.
What were the executives’ thoughts on the appointment?
“It is both exciting and an honor for us that Azin has chosen to lead our Board of Directors as new Chairwoman,” said Karl von Mangoldt and Conrad Rasmus, Co-CEOs of Protembis.
“Azin continues to be committed to this space and brings incredible experience in the field of embolic protection and medical devices to Protembis. We are delighted to have Azin’s insights as we generate more clinical data and advance the development of the ProtEmbo System.”
Commenting on her appointment, Azin Parhizgar said, “I have watched Protembis’ successes and this space over the past years. I am convinced that there is a need for a simple and effective next generation complete cerebral protection system. Protembis has developed an intuitive and differentiated technology, and I am very much looking forward to joining this great group of people to support the company’s continued success and value creation.”
Protembis will conduct an IDE study aimed at showing safety and efficacy of the ProtEmbo® Cerebral Protection System during transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR).
The ProtEmbo® System is an intra-aortic filter device that deflects embolic material away from the brain during TAVR. It is a low-profile system which is delivered through the left radial artery for optimal placement and stability. This is an ideal access site enabling physicians to avoid interference with TAVR equipment which is delivered through the femoral artery. The study is designed as a multicenter randomized controlled trial in the US and Europe.
