EBR’s Board Chairman Gets Expanded Leadership Role

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based EBR Systems is giving its board chairman more responsibility.

Allan Will now will take on the additional roles of president and CEO. Will succeeds the company co-founder and CEO Rick Riley, who will remain with the company as chief operating officer and continue as a director.

Allan Will is an operating executive with the creation, operation and ultimate sale of start-up medtech firms. He has served as head of numerous medical device companies including DVI (acquired by Eli Lilly), AneuRx (acquired by Medtronic), Adjacent Surgical (acquired by GSII), Evalve (acquired by Abbott Laboratories), Ardian (acquired by Medtronic in one of the largest acquisitions of a venture-backed medical device company), and Concentric Medical (acquired by Stryker) among others.

Will also was founder, chairman and CEO of The Foundry, a medical device incubator where he was co-founder of 11 medical device companies, and a founding managing director of Split Rock Partners, a prominent venture capital firm.

“I am very excited to assume this increased role at EBR. The company’s wireless pacing technology promises to be the next major advance in cardiac rhythm management,” Will said. “Our first generation product should improve responder rates and decrease procedural difficulties associated with cardiac resynchronization therapy for heart failure. Ultimately, our wireless capability can replace all pacing leads, increasing efficacy and decreasing complications in bradycardia therapy as well as heart failure.”

EBR is currently engaged in the WiSE-CRT Study, a 100 patient feasibility, safety, and CE Mark trial in Europe demonstrating biventricular capture in heart failure patients. Sixteen patients have been enrolled in the study so far, with promising results, according to the company.

Patients successfully treated to date include those with acutely failed coronary sinus (CS) lead placement, chronically failed CS leads, patients “upgraded” from dual-chamber defibrillators and patients who have not yet responded to traditional cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT).

“EBR has demonstrated an outstanding technical achievement in this early phase of our clinical trial. The next phase of the company requires that we move the technology prominently into the market,” Riley said. “The addition of Allan’s full-time leadership at this point is an exceptional opportunity for us to achieve this next important step and a testament to the company’s ultimate potential.”

EBR’s wireless pacing technology was developed to eliminate cardiac pacing leads, which often can lead to efficacy and reliability issues.