Jupiter Endovascular today announced the appointment of interventional cardiologist Catalin Toma as chief medical officer.
The company have detailed that Toma brings extensive clinical and research experience across the structural heart and interventional landscape to his new role. He serves concomitantly as director of Interventional Cardiology for the UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute in Pittsburgh, USA, is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and leads the chronic total occlusion programme at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. He has served as co-principal investigator for a clinical study of the company’s Vertex thrombectomy system for pulmonary embolism (PE), as well as for many other high-profile clinical trials in the interventional space, including leading PE systems and transcatheter heart valves. He has published extensively and holds several invention patents.
“Toma is a globally recognised physician, researcher and leader in interventional cardiovascular medicine,” said Carl J St Bernard, chief executive officer of Jupiter Endovascular. “His experience treating patients with complex pulmonary vascular and structural heart disease, combined with his deep understanding of the clinical evidence required to advance new therapies, will be invaluable as we realise the potential of our Transforming Fixation [TFX] platform. We are delighted to welcome him as our chief medical officer.”
“Jupiter Endovascular is addressing a long-standing challenge in cardiovascular intervention, which is balancing the competing needs of flexibility and stability in your catheters without creating cardiac distress in unstable patients,” said Toma. “I have seen the capabilities of the company’s TFX technology in the Vertex system that enables one catheter to change its state from flexible to fixed, and back again, firsthand in the SPIRARE II trial and am very encouraged about its potential to enable us to do more than we can today with current commercial technologies. I’m also energised by the company’s vision to look beyond clot removal to the restoration of patient haemodynamics and right-heart recovery with the intent to improve long-term prospects for PE patients.”
