Palmaz Scientific Names President and CEO

Fremont, Calif.-based Palmaz Scientific Inc. has appointed Philippe Henri Marco to the positions of president and CEO. He replaces former CEO Steven Solomon, who resigned to pursue other opportunities.

Marco comes to Palmaz Scientific from Chansu Consulting LLC in Fremont, where he was a general partner, providing strategic regulatory, clinical, quality assurance, research and development and business development support for early stage ventures, as well as operational strategy for several cardiovascular device companies. He has more than 20 years of leadership experience in medical device ventures, including in-depth knowledge of the interventional cardiac and endovascular fields as well as experience in product development, manufacturing operations, regulatory strategy, clinical trial coordination and management, marketing, and sales training.

“Dr. Marco is a perfect fit for us,” company founder Julio Palmaz, M.D., said. “His interventional cardiac and endovascular medical industry background is in line with our company vision of creating a technology platform with the promise to bring to market a generation of stents and other implantable devices that could change the practice of medicine. He has an excellent track record in taking medical devices through regulatory approvals to market. In the past 15 months, under Philippe’s guidance, Chansu Consulting achieved a full [U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigational device exemption] approval, two CE marks and a first-in-human study approval, as well as submitting a [pre-market approval] and two 510(k) filings with the Food and Drug Administration.”

Since 2008, Palmaz Scientific has been developing a nanotechnology application based on plasma vapor deposition to produce more precise implantable medical devices that are extremely thin, yet structurally very robust. The technology is supported by more than 250 issued patents with more than 130 additional active patent filings in process.

“This company has an opportunity to change the way medical device development is approached,” Marco said, “and I am excited to come in at this stage and to have the opportunity to work side by side with Dr. Julio Palmaz. We will take the offensive by designing, testing and producing our own devices, breaking through the current conventional approach to medical device manufacturing. We believe we can create superior devices to those currently marketed in order to treat patients with peripheral artery disease, intra-cranial aneurysms or structural heart disease, addressing unmet medical needs for both patients and clinicians.”