FlexDex Names Chief Executive Officer

FlexDex Inc., a medical device company developing a platform of articulating laparoscopic instruments for minimally invasive surgery, has named Clark Barousse as president and CEO. He replaces James D. Geiger, M.D., who served as interim CEO since August 2017. Dr. Geiger will continue as a member of FlexDex’s Board of Directors and as chief medical officer and provide support to the company and Barousse during this transition.
 
Barousse is a business executive with more than 25 years of experience in the medical device market. He has a track record of leading, developing, and executing on commercialization strategies and driving market development initiatives.
 
“I’m excited to have Clark lead the FlexDex team. Clark’s experience and leadership in a broad range of medical device technologies including endoscopic imaging, laparoscopic instruments, and minimally invasive procedures is complimentary to FlexDex’s vision of enabling the benefits of minimally invasive surgery to more patients,” commented Dr. Geiger.
 
Barousse most recently served as president and chief operating officer, Americas, for Pentax Medical. While at Pentax, he restructured and rebuilt a declining capital business, set new strategic direction, resolved numerous U.S. Food and Drug Administration issues and grew revenue at an above market growth rate after six consecutive years of decline. Prior to this time, Barousse served as senior vice president, chief sales officer at Biolase, a manufacturer and distributor of dental lasers and president at Hybridge, a network of dental practices that works with clinicians to improve their practices. He also held senior sales, marketing, and research and development positions with Biohorizons, Smith & Nephew Orthopedics, Ethicon Inc. and Genzyme. Under Barousse’s commercial leadership at Biohorizons, the business tripled its revenue in a four year period, prior to its sale to Henry Schein. 
 
“I look forward to joining this team and leading FlexDex to the next level,” stated Barousse. “FlexDex has a novel product platform that is already providing benefits to patients and has the exciting potential to redefine robotic surgery globally.”
 
“We are extremely pleased to welcome Clark as our president and chief executive officer,” stated Richard Hylant, FlexDex’s board chairman. “Clark has extensive experience in product commercialization, developing strategic relationships, fundraising and acquisitions that we consider critically important for FlexDex to realize its full potential as a medical device company.”
 
Barousse earned his bachelor of arts degree in economics/spanish at Hampden-Sydney College. He received his MBA from Georgia State University.
 
FlexDex is a medical device company that is developing the FlexDex platform to provide surgeons with high performance and cost effective minimally invasive surgical instruments. The company’s focus is to enable advanced minimally invasive procedures with greater precision and less fatigue. FlexDex was developed at the University of Michigan by co-founders Shorya Awtar, Sc.D., Geiger, and Greg Bowles. This platform technology enables highly intuitive, one-to-one mapping of the surgeon’s arm and hand motions to the articulating instrument inside the patient’s body. The patented “Virtual Center” of the FlexDex platform is a simple mechanical design the company claims greatly enhances the capabilities of all minimally invasive surgical (MIS) instruments. The FlexDex Needle Driver, the first instrument of the FlexDex platform, has been granted the CE mark and is available for sale in the United States and internationally. FlexDex Surgical’s first product, an articulating needle driver, is being used by surgeons in the United States. FlexDex has an exclusive distribution agreement in the United States with Olympus and distribution in over 15 territories internationally for many procedures including inguinal-ventral hernia repair, foregut surgery, bariatric surgery, partial nephrectomy, prostatectomy, and hysterectomy.