WhiteSwell Adds Two VPs to its Senior Management Team

WhiteSwell has welcomed two new members to its senior management team. The company appointed Linda Nelson as vice president of Clinical and Martin Keegan as vice president of Technical Operations.

“Both Linda and Martin bring extensive experience and seasoned leadership to the WhiteSwell team,” CEO Eamon Brady said. “With a powerful senior management team in place, WhiteSwell is well positioned to advance its pioneering treatment of acute decompensated heart failure by leveraging the lymphatic system. WhiteSwell’s unique catheter-based system is designed to improve decongestion by assisting the lymphatic network in removing excess fluid from the body’s tissues.”
 
An expert in heart failure, clinical trial design, clinical trial execution, and building clinical teams, Nelson is leading WhiteSwell’s clinical program. She is guiding clinical strategy to demonstrate the potential for WhiteSwell’s endovenous decongestion therapy leveraging the lymphatics to target interstitial decongestion in acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) patients. Nelson joins WhiteSwell from Medtronic, where she directed numerous clinical research teams. She previously served as vice president of Clinical Affairs at Respicardia, where she successfully executed a randomized, pivotal IDE clinical trial. She earned a bachelor of science degree in nursing from St. Olaf’s College, Minn., and an MBA from the University of St. Thomas, Minn.
 
Keegan has a breadth of technical expertise spanning endovascular and cardiovascular medical devices through to electronics, including hardware and software development. As vice president of Technical Operations, he oversees a worldwide network of suppliers to deliver high quality precision-engineered products. Most recently, as Technical Operations director and Integration leader at Boston Scientific Corp., he was responsible for manufacturing, process optimization and validation, and led a successful technology transfer program. Keegan earned an MEngSc degree in mechanical engineering from National University of Ireland, Galway, and is a chartered engineer of the Institute of Engineers of Ireland.
 
ADHF is an episode of worsening heart failure symptoms that results in millions of hospitalizations worldwide each year, including 3 million in the United States alone.¹ Patients with ADHF experience difficulty breathing, fatigue, and edema (swelling) due to fluid back-up in the lungs and other parts of the body (congestion). The condition requires hospital-based treatment to remove excess fluid in a process called decongestion. Complete decongestion is the goal of ADHF treatment, since residual congestion at hospital discharge is the strongest predictor of rehospitalization and death.² As many as half of ADHF patients are discharged from the hospital not fully decongested, and 25 percent of ADHF patients are readmitted to the hospital within one month.^3,4,5
 
In healthy individuals, the lymphatic system continuously captures fluid from tissues throughout the body and pumps it back into the vascular system to maintain homeostasis. In ADHF, excess fluid collects in the tissues of the body (the interstitial compartment) causing edema and an increase in venous blood pressure. Excess tissue fluid and high venous blood pressure interfere with the lymphatic system’s natural ability to move fluid, which can further exacerbate congestion.
 
WhiteSwell is a science-driven company dedicated to improving treatment of acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF), a primary cause of repeat hospitalization and emergency room visits. The company is pioneering a minimally invasive catheter-based approach designed to more efficiently remove excess interstitial fluid in patients with ADHF by leveraging the lymphatic system’s natural ability to actively drain fluid. 

References
¹ Hollenberg et al., J Am Coll Cardiol 2019;74:1966–2011.   (1M annual hospital discharges with HF as primary diagnosis and 2M hospital discharges with HF as secondary contributing diagnosis.)
² Martens & Mullens, How to tackle congestion in acute heart failure, Korean J Intern Med 2018;33:462-473
³ Girerd et al, Integrative Assessment of Congestion in Heart Failure Throughout the Patient Journey, J Am Coll Cardiol HF 2018;6:273–85
⁴ Arrigo et al, Nature Reviews Disease Primers volume 6, Article number: 16 (2020)
⁵ Rubio-Gracia, J. et al. (2018). International Journal of Cardiology, 258, pp. 185-191.