Direct Flow Names New Chief Executive

Direct Flow Medical Inc. has named Daniel Lemaitre as president and CEO. David Boyle has been appointed chief financial officer (CFO). Both new posts are effective immediately. Current CEO Bernard Lyons will be retiring from the company.

Lemaitre previously served as president and CEO of CoreValve Inc. from 2008 to 2009, where he helped orchestrate the European launch of the company’s transcatheter heart valve and the company’s eventual $800 million acquisition by Medtronic plc. Prior to that, he was a senior vice president for Medtronic, where he led strategic planning and business development. Earlier in his career, Lemaitre was considered one of the top-ranked medical device analysts in the country, leading Cowen & Company’s healthcare research team, and then Merrill Lynch’s medical technology team. He currently serves as chairman of privately held Bioventus and is on the boards of Endologix and Globus Medical.

David Boyle has served as CFO for five healthcare companies over the course of his 32-year financial career, most recently for Ogenx Therapeutics, an emerging company focused on pro-drugs for a variety of diseases. The public companies where he has served as CFO include Bionovo, AVI BioPharma, where he also served as interim CEO, XOMA and Salix Pharmaceuticals. His experience includes initial public offerings, closing of significant new private funding and government contracts, and implementation of new financial and accounting systems. Earlier in his career, Boyle had extensive international and merger and acquisitions experience with Ernst & Young and the Ares Serono Group.

“Dan is the ideal person to help Direct Flow Medical realize its mission of becoming a true structural heart leader,” said Paul LaViolette, chairman of the board for Direct Flow Medical. “Dan’s knowledge of the aortic valve space and the medical device landscape as a whole is unparalleled. His experience will be extraordinarily valuable as we become a major participant in the market. In addition, David Boyle will provide Dan with exceptionally strong financial stewardship as we build the company in the years ahead.”

“Direct Flow Medical has an innovative platform technology addressing one of the largest and fastest-growing markets in medical technology today—transcatheter aortic heart valve replacement, or TAVR—with the opportunity to address other structural heart diseases,” said Lemaitre. “I am impressed with the unique benefits of the company’s technology platform and excited to be part of the team that will bring tremendous value to patients, physicians and investors.”

“As we make this transition, I want to thank Bernie Lyons for his instrumental leadership over the last nine years with the company,” said LaViolette. “He took an innovative idea and made it real, generating excellent clinical results, securing critical financing, building a robust commercial organization in Europe and achieving strong regulatory momentum in the U.S. He built this company into one with tremendous growth potential and we are grateful for his contribution.”

Founded in 2004 and based in Santa Rosa, Calif., Direct Flow Medical develops transcatheter heart valve technologies. The venture-backed firm’s primary TAVR technology is approved for use in Europe. It continues enrollment in SALUS, its pivotal study in the United States.