ExThera Medical Creates Scientific Advisory Board

ExThera Medical Corporation (ExThera) has formed a Scientific Advisory Board. Led by chairman Lakhmir (Mink) Chawla, M.D., current chief medical officer of La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company, the Scientific Advisory Board will include several medical professionals from both the United States and Germany. Professor

Dr. Herwig Gerlach, director of the Clinic for Anesthesiology, Critical Care Medicine and Pain Management at Vivantes Klinikum Neukoelln in Berlin, Germany, and Stuart Goldstein, M.D., director of the Center for Acute Care Nephrology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (Ohio), will join the ExThera Scientific Advisory Board immediately. ExThera, an early-stage device company in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a developer of novel therapies for reducing bacteria and viruses in blood.
 
As ExThera innovates to improve the treatment of bloodstream infections and sepsis globally, the three SAB appointees bring comprehensive medical and research expertise to the company, including direction of ExThera’s U.S. and European clinical trial programs.
 
Prior to joining the board, Dr. Chawla was a professor of Medicine at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he directed research efforts for the Division of Critical Care Medicine. He previously headed the Division of Intensive Care Medicine at the Washington, D.C., Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and currently serves as a clinical professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center. With a focus on critical care and nephrology, Dr. Chawla has led and supported several grants and research projects centered on acute kidney injury, renal disease, extra-corporeal therapies, shock, and sepsis.
 
Professor Gerlach brings expertise in anesthesiology and critical care medicine as a board-certified physician and professor. A widely published researcher, he has investigated issues pertaining to intensive care, critical care and emergency medicine, and post-operative care, and the treatment of sepsis, which are highly relevant to ExThera’s mission of developing new therapies for the treatment of bloodstream infections. In addition to his several roles throughout Germany, Prof. Dr. Gerlach also previously served as a research fellow at Columbia University in New York, N.Y. He previously served as president of the German Sepsis Society and is now vice president.
 
Dr. Goldstein contributes expertise in nephrology and brings to the board a unique perspective from his background in pediatric care. In addition to his current role at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, he holds a faculty position as a professor of pediatrics for the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine. Dr. Goldstein has also led and contributed research support for several research investigations focused on device therapies, including those with emphasis on renal failure and end-stage renal disease, for various institutions.
 
“I am delighted to be working with ExThera and Professors Gerlach and Goldstein. Despite progress in the treatment of many infectious diseases there remain many pathogens for which there are no effective anti-microbials. The ExThera technology brings cutting edge material science to the bedside allowing clinicians to treat bacterial and viral diseases that do not have adequate treatments available. It is an exciting opportunity to bring a new weapon to fight these infectious diseases,” said Chawla.
 
Based in Martinez, Calif., and in Vaals, The Netherlands, ExThera is a privately held medical device company developing single-use blood filters capable of capturing and removing a broad range of bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins or other harmful substances from whole blood. The company develops therapeutic products to treat patients in the hospital or clinic, during epidemics, or on the battlefield. Led by a management team with extensive experience in blood-contacting devices and biomaterials, the company has strong patent protection and a growing body of data from independent laboratory studies, from its participation in DARPA’s Dialysis-Like Therapeutics program and from a successful European Union clinical trial.