DELIVERING CONFIDENCE

Nicholas Franano, MD, is a physician, scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur. He is President and CEO of Artio Medical, and a co-founder. Dr. Franano is an experienced entrepreneur, founding several companies including Artio Medical, Flow Forward Medical, Novita Therapeutics, and Proteon Therapeutics (NYSE: PRTO). Dr. Franano has held positions of President, CEO, and CSO at these companies, which have raised collectively over $120 million in capital and grants.

Before Proteon, Dr. Franano maintained an active clinical practice in interventional radiology, performing a wide range of vascular and non-vascular procedures. He received both his Doctor of Medicine and Master of Science in biomedical research from Washington University in St. Louis. He completed a residency in Diagnostic Radiology and a fellowship in Interventional Radiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He has received numerous research awards, grants and fellowships, and has published many abstracts and articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Franano holds 11 patents and more than 30 pending patent applications. In 2009, Dr. Franano was named a “Technology Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum and an Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” for the Central Midwest. Dr. Franano serves on the Biological Sciences Advisory Board at the University of Kansas and the Entrepreneurship Council at Washington University in St. Louis.

Jim Schultz is the founder of Open Prairie and is responsible for the management of four private equity funds with investments in innovative technologies spanning medical devices, agriculture/food and information systems. Funds invested by Open Prairie have resulted in two successful IPOs and created over 4,000 jobs across 40 portfolio investments. In addition to being a member of the Artio board of directors, Jim has been an active board member on notable medical device investments, including:

• TomoTherapy (2007 IPO; NASDAQ: TOMO) – cancer treatment technology
• FlowForward Medical (current investment) – hemodialysis technology
• ConsortiEX (current investment) – SaaS hospital pharmacy
• MedVenture Technologies (sold in 2008 to Ampersand) – outsource device manufacturing
• Compact Particle Acceleration Corporation (divested in 2013) – proton-therapy treatment device

Maria Sainz has over 25 year of experience in commercial and leadership positions in the medical device industry. Maria is currently President and CEO of Aegea Medical, a venture backed medical device company focused on women’s health. Maria has served as the President and CEO of Cardiokinetix, a medical device company pioneering a catheter-based treatment for heart failure. Prior to that, Maria was the President and CEO of Concentric Medical, a developer of minimally invasive products for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke, which was acquired in 2011 by Stryker Corporation. Maria began her device career at Guidant Corporation where she held positions of increasing responsibility in Europe and the US. When Guidant was acquired by Boston Scientific, Maria served as President of the Cardiac Surgery division of Guidant Corporation. Maria has been intimately involved in several major medical device product launches, including coronary stents and cardiac resynchronization devices. Maria also serves as a Director of several public and private medical company boards.

Maria received a Master of Arts in Languages from the University Complutense in Madrid, Spain and a Masters in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Jeff has 30 years of commercial leadership experience in the Healthcare industry, including pharmaceutical, medical device, healthcare payments, and AI interventional robotics. Jeff is currently on the Regional Management Team at Corindus Vascular Robotics, a commercial AI robotics company, which was recently acquired by Siemens Healthineers for $1.1 billion.

Prior to Corindus, Jeff was Executive Vice President for medZERO, responsible for corporate development and positioning employers to provide employees with world’s first mobile payments platform for their healthcare bills. Prior to this, Jeff held several leadership positions at Spectrantics Corp., a cardiovascular medical device company acquired by Phillips. He was responsible for the national launch of the TightRail, a mechanical lead extraction device which captured 50% of the market in just 6 months. Before Spectranetics, Jeff held several leadership and successful sales positions at companies including Cyberonics, Guidant Corporation (Boston Scientific), CHS Solutions, Applied Vascular, and McNeil Pharmaceutical / Jassen (Johnson & Johnson).

Jeff holds a BS degree in communications from the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO.

Nathaniel Hagedorn is the founder and CEO of NorthPoint Development and brings nearly two decades of experience in accessing new markets and scaling new business opportunities. Nathaniel founded NorthPoint Development in 2012 as a local industrial developer, and over the past twelve years, he successfully raised $6.5B in capital, expanded operations to 21 states, employs over 280 people, and manages 75 million square feet of commercial real estate space. NorthPoint Development has also been honored as a Kansas City Business Journal “Best Places to Work” annually since 2013, and Nathaniel was a regional finalist for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2014. Prior to NorthPoint Development, Nathaniel was at Briarcliff Development Company and took on increasing roles within the organization, developing the skills, experience, and expertise he would later apply to the foundation of NorthPoint Development.

Nathaniel received both a Master’s degree and Bachelor of Arts in Finance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Dr. Blaise Baxter is a Neuro and Peripheral Interventional Radiologist. He recently served as Chief/Chair of the Radiology Department at Erlanger Health System. Dr. Baxter is currently a Special Government Employee for the Neurological Devices Panel for the FDA Medical Devices Advisory Committee. In addition, Dr. Baxter is the immediate Past-President of the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS). He is also an Executive Committee Member of American Society of NeuroRadiology (ASNR) and Scientific Statements Committee Member at American Stroke Association (ASA).

Dr. Baxter completed his Interventional Neuroradiology Fellowship at the University of Western Ontario, and received his medical degree from Dalhouse University Faculty of Medicine in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Dr. Joshua Hirsch is an Interventional Neuroradiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is the Vice Chair of Procedural Services,  Service Line Chief of Interventional NeuroRadiology, Chief of NeuroInterventional Spine Service, and has his academic appointment at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hirsch is a past president of both the American Society of Spine Radiology (ASSR) and the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS).  Dr. Hirsch is the President Elect of the American Society of Neuroradiology and the chair of the Cerebrovascular Coalition as well as the Health Policy Committee of the SNIS.

Dr. Hirsch has received numerous awards has published more than 500 articles in the peer reviewed literature and authored many chapters and edited many books. Dr. Hirsch is a founding editor of the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery (JNIS) and has served on multiple other editorial advisory boards.

Katie Arnold is Marketing Strategy Consultant for Artio Medical. She has 20 years of experience in healthcare and has worked with a variety of medical technology companies ranging from venture-backed start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Katie specializes in launch execution and commercialization strategy implementation in the US, EU and AP geographies. She founded and leads SPRIG Consulting, LLC providing strategic marketing services. Prior to founding SPRIG, Katie’s career included sales and marketing management roles with cardiovascular medical device companies Guidant Corporation and Kensey Nash Corporation. Katie is currently an adjunct Faculty member at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business, where she teaches medical product commercialization and financing.

Katie holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Vermont.

Laura Minarsch is a Senior Clinical Affairs Consultant for Artio Medical. She has over 30 years of experience in clinical support, design, development and execution of clinical trials for medical devices, with an emphasis on first-in-human, early feasibility, and post market clinical studies. She is on the editorial board of Cath Lab Digest and has co-authored numerous scientific and peer reviewed publications.

Laura  is a Registered Cardiovascular Invasive Specialist, Registered Radiologic Technologist, and Certified Clinical Research Professional. She holds a degree in Radiologic Technology from Fullerton College, a Bachelor of Science from the Organizational Health Management program at the University of Redlands, and is currently enrolled in the graduate program at University of La Verne.

Geoff Tansley is an engineering consultant for Artio Medical. He is a mechanical and biomedical engineer with over 30 years of broad engineering experience in the medical devices and manufacturing industries and specializes in designing, building, and testing blood pumps. Geoff consults widely with medical device companies, with a focus in the mechanics of blood flow, medical device design, and fluid dynamics. He is an inventor or co-inventor on 26 patents and has published over 90 papers in peer-reviewed papers in leading engineering journals.

Geoff has a PhD in Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Nottingham Trent, UK, and is currently an Emeritus Professor at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia.