• John Abele, Chairman, Boston Scientific
• David Cassak, Program Host & Managing Parter, Windhover Information
• Ronald W. Dollens, President and CEO, Guidant Corporation
• Thomas Fogarty, Inventor
• Eberhard Grube, Chief, Cardiology and Aniology, Heart Center Siegburg, Germany
• William A. Hawkins, President and COO, Medtronic
• Mir Imran, Founder and President, InCube
• Guy J. Lebeau, President, Cordis Corp.
• Michael Lesh, Inventor and Chairman and CEO, MVM Productions
• William New, Inventor and Founder, Natus
• Julio C. Palmaz, Inventor of the Stent
• Rodney Perkins
• John Simpson, Inventor and Partner, Denovo Ventures
• Simon Stertzer, M.D.
• James Tobin, President and CEO, Boston Scientific
  

John Abele, Chairman, Boston Scientific, has been driving the advancement of catheter-based medical technology for more than 30 years. Mr. Abele's vision, experience and passion for improving the delivery of health care have helped lead Boston Scientific to the forefront of less invasive medicine.

David Cassak, Program Host & Managing Parter, Windhover Information has been involved with the health care industry for more than 20 years. Mr. Cassak earned a BA from Drew University and did graduate work at Columbia and Princeton, where he earned an MA with honors. He then joined Cassak Publications Inc., a family-run business that published trade journals for the hospital and alternate site distribution industries. For much of the 1980s, he wrote and spoke frequently about the medical/surgical and hospital supply industries, before joining The Wilkerson Group, a health care consulting company, in 1988, as an editor of IN VIVO: The Business & Medicine Report.

In 1989, Mr. Cassak, along with his partner Roger Longman, led a buyout of the publications business of The Wilkerson Group, forming Windhover Information Inc. In addition to IN VIVO, Windhover publishes other monthly reports, including START-UP: Windhover's Review of Emerging Medical Ventures and IN VIVO Europe Rx: Inside Europe's Biopharma Companies. Windhover also has an extensive database of health care transactions which has been turned into a Web-based electronic system, Strategic Intelligence Systems (SIS). SIS allows users to search for transactions by a variety of criteria, including deal structure, value, and therapeutic and scientific categories. Windhover also has a conference business and is well-known for, among others, its Pharmaceutical Strategic Alliances (New York), Euro-Biotech (Paris), Marketing Pharmaceutical Alliances (Philadelphia), and Bio-Windhover (Washington) meetings. Mr. Cassak writes extensively about the medical device and hospital supply industries for IN VIVO and START-UP and is a frequent speaker before various companies and industry trade groups.

Ronald W. Dollens, President and CEO, Guidant Corporation, a $3.7 billion company traded on the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges (NYSE and PCX: GDT). Prior to the formation of Guidant, Mr. Dollens served as President of Eli Lilly and Company’s Medical Devices and Diagnostics Division (MDD). In 1985, Mr. Dollens was named Senior Vice President, Sales, Marketing, and Product Development for Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. (ACS), a MDD company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. In 1988, he became President and Chief Executive Officer of ACS. He assumed his current post as President and Chief Executive Officer of Guidant when the company was formed in 1994.

Thomas Fogarty, Inventor is a specialist whose creative talents have impacted many diverse professional and entrepreneurial arenas. In addition to his teaching responsibilities as Professor of Surgery at Stanford University, Dr. Fogarty performs numerous cardiac and peripheral vascular surgeries, manages several medical device companies founded upon his product designs and also finds time to pursue his interest in oenology at the family owned and operated Thomas Fogarty Winery and Vineyards.

Eberhard Grube, Chief, Cardiology and Aniology, Heart Center Siegburg, Germany is also a Consulting Professor of Medicine at Stanford. He is internationally renowned as an innovator in the development and testing of new devices and procedures for cardiology. Over the past decade he has taken the lead in the initial clinical testing of drug-eluting stents, percutaneous closure devices, new atherectomy techniques, catheter-based valve surgery and treatment of vulnerable plaque. His broad experience and early exposure to a wide range of new devices not yet available in the U.S. contribute to his unique vision for the future of innovations in cardiovascular technology.

William A. Hawkins, President and COO, Medtronic Previously, he served as Senior Vice President and President of Medtronic's Vascular business. Hawkins joined Medtronic in January 2002 from Novoste Corp., where he had been President and Chief Executive Officer since 1998. Earlier positions included Corporate Vice President and President of the Sherwood Davis and Geck organization of American Home Products; President of the Ethicon Endo-Surgery organization of Johnson & Johnson; President, Devices for Vascular Intervention and U.S. Operations, for Guidant Corp.; and several increasingly responsible executive positions culminating in the presidency of the Ivac organization for Eli Lilly & Co. He began his medical technology career with Carolina Medical Electronics in 1977.

Mir Imran, Founder and President, InCube is recognized for his history as a founder, entrepreneur and enthusiast of high technology companies. He is the founder and president of InCube, Inc, a Silicon Valley incubator for medical and internet companies. Through this incubator, he founded numerous medical and high technology companies. Mr. Imran currently serves as a Director for Surface Genesis, CardioVasc, Novasonics, MDISource.com, CoRelation.com, JStreetData.com and Intrapace, Inc. He was a pioneer in the development of the automatic implantable defibrillator, a device that has saved tens of thousands of lives, and has become a standard of care in cardiology. One of his high profile medical inventions is his EEG monitoring sensor array that John Glenn was featured as wearing in the Time Magazine story of his latest space mission. This became the first product for Physiometrix and has become a standard diagnostic tool used in neurophysiology.

Guy J. Lebeau, President, Cordis Corp., a Johnson & Johnson company. Dr. Lebeau was recently appointed worldwide president of Cordis Corporation, overseeing the company's cardiovascular, endovascular, neurovascular and electrophysiology business units, which together account for one of Johnson & Johnson's most promising franchises today. He joined Ethicon, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, in March 1991 as a research & development assistant. He then moved to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. where he held positions of increased responsibility in Sales & Marketing, leading to the appointment of Vice President of International Development.

Michael Lesh, Inventor and Chairman and CEO, MVM Productions, MD, is a world-renowned cardiac electrophysiologist, scientist, and medical device entrepreneur. He earned degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1977, before entering Medical School at the University of California, San Francisco. After completing his training UCSF, he accepted a fellowship in cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology at the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the faculty at UCSF and became the Chief of Cardiac Electrophysiology. Dr. Lesh’s research spanned a wide range from bench to bedside. He pioneered a number of procedures for catheter ablation of cardiac arrhythmias, and was the author of over 300 scientific papers, book chapters and books. Dr. Lesh has over 40 patents issued or pending.

William New, Inventor and Founder, Natus has crafted solutions that balance the requirements of engineer, physician, and businessperson, whether helping critically ill patients or newborns. William New, MD, PhD applies a unique mix of expertise and education in medicine, technology and business to improving healthcare through technology. He earned a bachelor's and a master's in electrical engineering from Stanford University; a doctorate in physiology from UCLA; a medical degree from Duke University; and a master's in business administration from Stanford. New holds 15 patents and has authored 20 scientific papers and four book chapters. He served for 25 years on the clinical faculty of Stanford's School of Medicine, where his clinical specialty was cardiovascular and heart transplant anesthesia and his research focused on the bioengineering of electronic instruments for intensive monitoring and life support. These interests fueled his invention of the pulse oximetry method of noninvasive monitoring of blood oxygenation during anesthesia. This innovation led to a commercial product now found in virtually every U.S. operating room.

Julio C. Palmaz, Inventor of the Stent, M.D., is the inventor of the first commercially successful stent and has developed numerous other procedures and devices, including the stent graft. Millions of patients worldwide, including stent recipient Mother Teresa, have benefited from the inventions of Dr. Palmaz, some of which have been donated to the Smithsonian Institute.

Rodney Perkins is the founder of the California Ear Institute at Stanford. He practices Otology and is a Professor of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine.

He is the founder and former chairman of three public companies: ReSound Corporation, Laserscope and Collagen Corporation. He is the founder and chairman of Novacept, Pulmonx, Cohesion and Sound ID. His vision and leadership has been instrumental in the success of these and other Bay Area-based technology companies. He holds eight issued patents and received his medical degree from Indiana University.

John Simpson, Inventor and Partner, Denovo Ventures is internationally recognized as a pioneer, innovator, and authority on interventional cardiology. His invention of the over the wire balloon angioplasty catheter led to the founding of Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (ACS) in 1978. In 1984, Dr. Simpson invented the concept of directional atherectomy (the removal of atheroma from the coronary artery) and founded Devices for Vascular Intervention (DVI). ACS and DVI are now divisions of Guidant Corporation.

Simon Stertzer, M.D. is an internationally recognized pioneer in catheterbased coronary interventions. He was the first practitioner of PTCA in the United States and has played a pivotal role in the development of balloon and guiding catheter technology. More recently, he has been involved with innovative designs for stents and intracoronary drug delivery. Dr. Stertzer’s research includes: intracoronary drug delivery via polymer stents, local delivery of plasma, DNA and other molecules into myocardial cells, advanced atherectomy and stent techniques and micro-encapsulated drug delivery of pharmaceuticals.

James Tobin, President and CEO, Boston Scientific joined Boston Scientific in 1999, bringing with him health care industry leadership and vision that will help the company build on its dramatic growth. Jim is driving Boston Scientific's strategic efforts to continue its global leadership position in the field of less-invasive medicine. With approximately 14,000 employees worldwide, the company develops, manufactures and markets less-invasive medical devices for use in a broad range of interventional medical specialties.

Before joining Boston Scientific, Jim was President and Chief Executive Officer of Biogen, Inc. He managed the company's research and development, manufacturing, marketing and sales. He joined Biogen as President and Chief Operating Officer in 1994 and became President and CEO in 1997. He also served on the company's Board of Directors.

Previously, Jim spent 22 years with Baxter International, rising from financial analyst to President and Chief Operating Officer. Between 1972 to 1994, he served as Managing Director in Japan (1975-1977) and Spain (1977-1980), and President of the I.V. Systems Group (1981-1986). He was promoted to Executive Vice President, responsible for running a worldwide business group, in 1988 and became responsible for Baxter's manufacturing and distribution business in 1990.

He served as President and Chief Operating Officer of the 60,000 employee, $9 billion company from 1992 until 1994.

Jim serves on the boards of Boston Scientific Corporation, Applera Corporation, Curis, Inc., Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Inc. and is involved with the BioMedical Science Career Program. He also served as lieutenant in the U. S. Navy from 1968 to 1972.

He holds an A.B. from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.