PECA Labs Names Three New Board Members

PECA Labs has welcomed Jeffrey P. Carpenter, M.D., Jeffrey O’Donnell Sr., and Samuel E. Navarro to its Board of Directors. The trio will help guide the company as it develops and commercializes cardiovascular implants based on its novel tunable polymeric material platform. 

“We are grateful to bring on such an accomplished group of new board members, each of whom has incredible experience to offer PECA Labs,” CEO Doug Bernstein said. “With their guidance, we aim to transform the field of vascular implants to drive significantly better outcomes for physicians and their patients.”
 
A vascular and endovascular surgeon, Carpenter is chairman and chief of the Department of Surgery at Cooper University Healthcare in the greater Philadelphia area. In practice for 37 years, he is an award-winning clinician responsible for hundreds of lectures and publications that have advanced the field. Carpenter is also a serial entrepreneur, having founded Embrella Cardiovascular, which was acquired by Edwards Lifesciences. Carpenter earned his medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn., and a fellowship in vascular surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) in Philadelphia. 
 
O’Donnell brings to PECA Labs more than 25 years of board and chief executive experience at emerging medical device companies. He currently serves as managing director for medtech accelerator Runway Healthcare and as managing partner at Lucius Partners. O’Donnell founded was CEO at Trice Medical, and before that Embrella Cardiovascular, which was acquired by Edwards Lifesciences. He was president and CEO at both PhotoMedix and Cardiovascular Dynamics, taking the latter public and purchasing Radiance Medical Systems and Endologix. He was named Life Sciences CEO of the Year by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2005. 
 
Navarro is a seasoned executive with decades of experience in finance, with an emphasis in healthcare. He is currently managing partner at Gravitas Healthcare LLC, a strategic advisory firm focused on the emerging medical device industry, with transactions ranging from mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnership, and investments with leading corporate consolidators. Prior to founding Gravitas Healthcare, Navarro spent over two decades on Wall Street, with finance, investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, equity research, and investment management experience in the healthcare industry. Prior roles included leadership positions at Cowen & Co., The Galleon Group, ING Barings, and UBS. 
 
“PECA Labs’ unique polymeric material opens up an exciting and large opportunity to create and transform how cardiovascular devices, such as vascular grafts and heart valves, result in better fit and more durable implants,” Navarro said. “I believe PECA is on the verge of important inflection points in clinical, regulatory, and early commercialization progress, resulting in a very attractive opportunity for value creation.”
 
PECA Labs is reimagining the field of vascular grafts and valves with durable polymeric cardiovascular devices that are designed to fit, grow and last to help patients avoid repeat surgeries and reduce morbidity and mortality. PECA’s proprietary technologies, a controllably-expandable graft and low- thrombosis polymeric membrane, consist of a proprietary tunable polymer material platform that represents a new approach in engineering synthetic materials for greater durability and customization than currently available cardiovascular implants. The company’s grafts and conduits are designed to lead to a longer lifespan compared to currently available products, due to resistance to thrombosis, calcification and immune response, and by providing growth potential, customization, and noninvasive visualization.