Palmaz taps new CEO, sues broker

Palmaz Scientific said today that it named medtech veteran Dr. Philippe Henri Marco to replace Steven Solomon as president and CEO, after Solomon left last month “to pursue other opportunities.”

Marco, a general partner at Chansu Consulting, was COO at CV Ingenuity until its 2013 acquisition by Covidien. His resume includes stints as VP of clinical, regulatory affairs & quality assurance at Xtent, director of clinical & regulatory affairs at Abbott Vascular and senior clinical marketing manager at Perclose.

Founded in 2008 by coronary stent pioneer Dr. Julio Palmaz, the Fremont, Calif.-based company is working on a coronary stent  based on a “super alloy” it’s developing. Julio Palmaz called Marco ” a perfect fit” for the company.

“His interventional cardiac and endovascular medical industry background is right in line with our company vision of creating a technology platform with the promise to bring to market a revolutionary 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,” Palmaz said in prepared remarks. “In the past 15 months, under Philippe’s guidance, Chansu Consulting achieved a full FDA IDE (Investigational Device Exemption) approval, two CE marks and a First-in-Human study approval, as well as submitting a PMA (Pre-Market Approval) and two 510k (Pre-Market Notification) filings with the Food & Drug Administration. That sort of experience is vital for Palmaz Scientific at this stage in our development.”

“This company has an extraordinary opportunity to fundamentally change the way medical device development is approached and I am excited to come in at this stage and to have the opportunity to work side by side with Dr. Julio Palmaz, who is one of the truly great innovators in medical history,” Marco added. “We will take the offensive, by designing, testing and producing our own devices, breaking through the current conventional approach to medical device manufacturing. For example, we believe that 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 substantial unmet medical needs for both patients and clinicians.”

Saying it was out of cash, Palmaz Scientific had planned last month for Palmaz to step down as chairman, replaced by former Kinetic Concepts Inc. CEO Cathy Burzik (now an operating partner at venture capital shop Targeted Technology). But a day later Burzik abruptly backed out and a planned investment by Targeted Technology was scrapped.

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