Endospan Elects a Board Member

Endospan, a pioneer in off-the-shelf endovascular repair of aortic arch disease including aneurysms and dissections, has elected Jeff Elkins to its board of directors. Elkins has been president and CEO of Veniti Inc. since July 2015.
 
“Jeff Elkins has significant experience in our space with both startups and larger companies,” said Kevin Mayberry, president and CEO of Endospan. “We expect that he will therefore be invaluable to Endospan during this time of ambitious market development efforts for NEXUS, the first off-the-shelf endovascular approach to treating aortic arch disease including aneurysms and dissections. While minimally invasive techniques are standard-of-care for treating descending aortic disease and heart disease, it is still unfortunate that the bridge between the two in the difficult-to-treat aortic arch anatomy is dramatically underserved, therefore remaining a highly invasive, high-mortality open surgery. NEXUS is designed to be the solution for this significant unmet clinical need.”
 
Previously, Elkins was chief operating officer (COO) and earlier CEO of Aptus Endosystems, acquired by Medtronic plc; and, founding COO of FlowMedica, acquired by AngioDynamics. Earlier in his career, Elkins waschief technology officer for World Medical Corp., where he led development and scale-up of the TALENT aortic endograft system, acquired by Medtronic; he then became vice president and business unit manager for the Endovascular Division of Medtronic. Elkins also held various operations and product development management positions at Cordis and Cordis Endovascular Systems (acquired by J&J), and Haemonetics Corp. during its initial public offering.
 
“I am tremendously excited to join the Endospan team, whose core product is already clinically established and expected to be first-to-market,” said Elkins. “More than 120,000 patients endure thoracic aortic arch disease every year in the U.S. and Europe, but only about one in four is diagnosed or treated. This global market opportunity already exceeds $1.3 billion in spite of the fact that this segment has no approved off-the-shelf endovascular options. Consequently, my expectation is that NEXUS will be embraced by physicians.”
 
With the addition of Elkins, Endospan’s board of directors now numbers seven, including Alon Shalov, Rafi Benary, Yoav Shaked, Irit Yaniv, William Wang, and Chairman Avi Ludomirski.
 
Privately held Endospan, headquartered in Herzlia (Tel Aviv), Israel, is a pioneer in the endovascular repair of aortic arch disease including aneurysms and dissections. Endospan has initiated the CE marking regulatory process to market in Europe the NEXUS Stent Graft System, the first endovascular off-the-shelf system to treat aortic arch disease: a greatly underserved group of patients diagnosed with a dilative lesion in, or near, the aortic arch. While minimally invasive endovascular repair has been the standard of care for abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), aortic arch disease patients with aneurysms or dissections have not been as fortunate and have had little choice but to undergo open-chest surgery with its invasiveness and risks, lengthy hospitalization periods, and prolonged recuperation.
 
The NEXUS Stent Graft System is approved for investigational use, and the CE mark registration process is underway in Europe.