Leadership Team
Amir Abolfathi, CEO
Amir founded Sonitus Medical, Inc. in 2006, leveraging 20 years of experience in founding, building, and managing medical device companies. Prior to Sonitus, Amir served for six years as an Officer, Vice President of R&D at Align Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: ALGN), creators of a unique, invisible orthodontic product. Previously, Amir was the first member of the senior management team at Embolic Protection Inc., where he was a consulting VP of Operations. EPI was successfully acquired by Boston Scientific in 2001. In early 1995, Amir co-founded EndoTex Interventional Systems, developers of minimally invasive solutions for treatment of carotid artery disease, which was also acquired by Boston Scientific in 2006. Amir has also held various management and engineering positions at Pfizer, Guidant, and Baxter-Edwards. As a seasoned entrepreneur, Amir has over 60 issued and pending patent applications, including 11 publications in peer review journals. Amir received his M.S. in Engineering Management from the University of Southern California and a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from UC San Diego.
Kurt Carlson, Ph.D., J.D.: Vice President of Intellectual Property; Head of National Security Applications
Kurt joined the company as Vice-President of Corporate and IP Strategy. Prior to joining Sonitus, Kurt was an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati representing several biopharmaceutical, diagnostic and medical device companies in the areas of technology transactions and strategic IP counseling. Prior to joining WSGR, Kurt worked for several biotechnology firms in the fields of intellectual property law and business development. His most recent position was as Vice-President, Intellectual Property and Corporate Development, for KineMed, Inc., a privately-held biopharmaceutical company. In addition to his civilian experience, Kurt served in the U.S. Navy Reserve for 21 years, retiring with the rank of Commander. Kurt received his B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of California at San Diego, his M.P.H. and Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of California at Berkeley, and his J.D. from the University of San Francisco.
Patrick W. Fabian, Vice President of Sales
Mr. Fabian has over 20 years experience in the medical device industry. From August 2007 through November 2010 Mr. Fabian held the position of Senior Vice President of Sales and Training for Acclarent Inc. In January 2007 he was appointed Senior Vice President at Accellent Inc responsible for sales and marketing of a $350 Million dollar business. In 2006 Mr. Fabian held the position of Executive Vice President and General Manager for Accellents Cardiology division as well as Vice President Sales in 2004 - 2005. Prior to joining Accellent, Mr. Fabian was Director of Sales for Smith & Nephew Endoscopy. From 1994 to 2001, Mr. Fabian held various management positions with Tyco, United States Surgical, including Area Director of the Auto Suture business. From 1991 to 1994, Mr. Fabian served as a Territory Manager for Pfizer Inc. Mr. Fabian has a B.A. in Business Administration from The University of St. Thomas (1991).
Vivi Filimon, Vice President of Regulatory; Quality and Manufacturing
Vivi Filimon has over 20 years experience in the medical device industry holding Regulatory Affairs and Quality Engineering management positions. She brings over 10 years of experience in the medical device start up environment, covering responsibilities for product operations, quality system development, product regulatory approvals and regulatory market expansion. She served as Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance for Curon Medical and Barrx Medical Inc. She also held senior management positions with established firms such as Abbott Laboratories, Intuitive Surgical, Boston Scientific, Olympus America and Toshiba America Inc. Vivi Filimon earned a M.S. in Electrical Engineering, from the Politehnica University of Bucharest.
Peter Hadrovic, Vice President of Business Development; Head, Emerging Business Opportunities
Peter Hadrovic brings to Sonitus broad industry experience in strategy, management, and business transactions, as well as experience in the public sector. Prior to Sonitus, Peter was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at Adamas Pharmaceuticals, a developer of small molecule controlled release combination drugs. Before Adamas, Peter served as Vice President, Business Development, General Counsel and General Manager of Laserscope, a publically traded medical device company maker of the GreenLight surgical laser, until it was acquired by American Medical Systems. Prior to joining industry, Mr. Hadrovic specialized in general corporate, securities and M&A law at Venture Law Group advising emerging technology companies in Silicon Valley, and before that in M&A and structured finance transactions at White & Case/New York representing Fortune 500 companies. He also brings valuable expertise from the public sector, where he served as a U.S. congressional aide responsible for health care policy, among other issues. Mr. Hadrovic received an A.B. from Princeton University and a J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Tim Proulx, Vice President of Research & Development
Tim brings 20 years experience in medical devices and medical imaging to the R&D team at Sonitus. With degrees in biomedical and electrical engineering, Tim has spent most of his career in research and development of advanced diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound transducers and materials, piezoelectric devices and audio/RF signal processing algorithms. Prior to joining Sonitus, Tim was Director of Systems Development at Cabochon Aesthetics, Inc. which developed a high power ultrasound ablation system for aesthetics procedures. He has also held positions in engineering management and project management at Siemens Medical Solutions (formerly Acuson) and BCTech, Inc. and has considerable experience in medical device regulations and quality systems, including ISO 13485 and IEC 60601 standards. Tim has three issued patents and 10 patents pending, several technical publications and has presented at IEEE UFFC and IHCON technical conferences. Tim is a graduate of Duke University and Stanford University and currently serves on the Duke University BME Undergraduate Advisory Board.
Andreas Sand, Vice President of Systems Engineering
With more than 12 years of experience in technical and people management within the embedded, telecom and medical device industry, Andreas brings broad knowledge and expertise of electronic design, processes, regulatory and people managing to the R&D team. Andreas was previously Director of R&D at Kontron America, where he headed up a design team of 20 people developing extremely miniaturized embedded PC designs as well as providing full custom design services. Andreas has successfully launched more than 15 products into the market space ranging from remote wireless sensors, patient monitor, point of sales terminals, slot machine designs, small office wireless DSL routers, as well as a series of extremely miniaturized embedded PC designs. Andreas has further developed and implemented a strategic turn-around of a previous company recovering from 10 years of losses into a now successful and profitable business unit within Kontron. Andreas is an electrical engineering graduate from Technical University of Denmark and further holds a business degree from Copenhagen Business School.
Jason Shelton, Vice President of Marketing; Health Policy and Clinical Affairs
With over 12 years experience in medical devices and consumer healthcare, Jason joined Sonitus Medical in October 2008. Previously he served as Vice President of Marketing for BioForm Medical, Inc. from 2005 to 2008 through several key milestones including BioForm's FDA clearance and launch of Radiesse® dermal filler in December 2006, and the company's IPO in November 2007. From early 2000 through late 2005, he was with Align Technology, Inc., a medical device company that makes Invisalign® invisible braces. As Senior Director of Marketing, Jason was part of the team that helped build the company from a venture-backed start-up into a profitable public company with annual revenue in excess of $200 million at his departure. A classically trained marketer, Jason was previously with SmithKline Beecham, Inc. (now GlaxoSmithKline) working on the brand management teams of national consumer healthcare brands including NicoDerm CQ® and Aquafresh® toothpaste. Jason received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from The Ohio State University and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.
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