CarThera Appoints Board Chairman

CarThera, a French company that designs and develops ultrasound-based medical devices to treat brain disorders, has appointed Pascal E. R. Girin as board chairman.
 
Girin has decades of business expertise in the life sciences and medical devices markets, most recently as CEO of Balt, a developer of neurovascular disease treatments. Prior to this, he held numerous C-level positions at medical companies, including Wright Medical, Keystone Dental (a Warburg Pincus company), EV3, Baxter, and Ohmeda, among others.
 
Girin has considerable experience as a member of six medical devices company boards, having served at MRI Interventions, Biom’Up, Silk Road Medical, Keystone Dental, Tornier, and Mauna Kea Technologies. He has a degree in engineering from the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines.
 
As chairman of CarThera’s board of directors, Girin will bring invaluable insight to the company’s business strategy and future development.
 
“We are thrilled to welcome Pascal, a well-versed business expert, to head up our board of directors,” said Frederic Sottilini, CEO of CarThera. “We have far-reaching plans for our SonoCloud-9 device in the treatment of glioblastoma and other brain conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases. Pascal is a great addition to our leadership team for turning these plans into reality.”
 
“I’m excited to join CarThera at such a crucial time for the company,” said Girin. “I believe that my experience in medical devices worldwide, and more specifically in the United States, will bring support in the development of clinical programs and expansion of the business.”
 
CarThera recently published complete results of its Phase I/IIa glioblastoma study on the ultrasound-induced blood-brain barrier (BBB) opening using its SonoCloud-1 implant, aimed at improving the efficiency of carboplatin chemotherapy.
 
The company is now recruiting recurrent GBM patients for its new clinical trial (NCT03744026) with the SonoCloud-9 implantable ultrasound device, which is designed to cover a volume nine times larger than the previous generation device. This device will cover the tumor and surrounding infiltrative areas.
 
SonoCloud is a medical device developed by CarThera. It emits ultrasound to temporarily increase the permeability of the blood vessels in the brain. Invented by Professor Alexandre Carpentier, SonoCloud is an implant inserted into the skull and activated prior to chemotherapy. Several minutes of low-intensity ultrasound opens the blood brain barrier for six hours and increases the concentration of therapeutic molecules in the brain. The SonoCloud technology is appropriate for the treatment of brain diseases in general. Oncology indications are the company’s primary target but investigations are ongoing into other conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases and Alzheimer’s disease in particular.
 
CarThera designs and develops therapeutic ultrasound-based medical devices for treating brain disorders. The company is a spin-off from AP-HP, Greater Paris University Hospitals, the largest hospital group in Europe, and Sorbonne University. CarThera leverages the inventions of Carpentier, a neurosurgeon at AP-HP who has achieved worldwide recognition for his innovative developments in treating brain disorders. CarThera developed SonoCloud, an intracranial ultrasound implant that temporarily opens the blood-brain barrier (BBB).

Founded in 2010 by Carpentier, CarThera is based at the Brain and Spine Institute (Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière, ICM) in Paris, France, and has laboratories at the Bioparc Laënnec business incubator in Lyon, France. The company, led by Frederic Sottilini (CEO), works closely with the Laboratory of Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound (Laboratoire Thérapie et Applications Ultrasonores, LabTAU, INSERM) in Lyon. Since its inception, the company has received support from the AP-HP, Sorbonne University, the ANR (Nationale Research Agency), France’s Ministry of Research, the Ile-de-France region, the Bpifrance public investment bank, the Medicen Paris Region and Lyonbiopôle clusters.