People In Brief
This article was originally published in The Gray Sheet
Executive Summary
Medtronic's DeMane goes VC: Former Medtronic Chief Operating Officer Michael DeMane joins health care venture capital firm Thomas, McNerney & Partners April 3. Thomas, McNerney's device portfolio includes atrial fibrillation firm Atritech and continuous glucose monitor developer ArKal Medical. DeMane, who had served in various executive roles with Medtronic since 2000, left the device giant last year when the firm elected to remove the COO position (1"The Gray Sheet" May 5, 2008, p. 4). He is the second big device company COO to move to the venture capital sector in the past three months, with Paul LaViolette leaving Boston Scientific for SV Life Sciences in January (2"The Gray Sheet" Dec. 22, 2008, p. 21)
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People In Brief
LaViolette ventures from Boston Sci: Former Boston Scientific Chief Operating Officer Paul LaViolette will join venture capital firm SV Life Sciences next month as a venture partner in the company's Boston office and medical technology segment. LaViolette relinquished the COO position July 1 as part of an executive restructuring at Boston Scientific (1"The Gray Sheet" June 9, 2008, p. 8). LaViolette will leave the device firm outright at the end of the year after six months as a company advisor and about 15 years as a top executive. SVLS's device portfolio includes laser ablation firm CardioFocus, ventricular assist device company MicroMed, and diabetes product firm Insulet. The venture firm points out that LaViolette integrated more than 20 acquisitions during his time at Boston Scientific
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Post-Gutman OIVD: Steve Gutman will leave FDA for academia at year-end after 17 years with the agency, including 14 years leading the device center's in vitro diagnostics oversight efforts. In 1993, Gutman took over the now-defunct clinical laboratory devices division in CDRH's Office of Device Evaluation. In 2002, he was the founding director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostic Device Evaluation and Safety, which has jurisdiction over both pre-market and post-market activity for test kits. Product waivers under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments and regulation of analyte specific reagents were among hot-topic policy issues he addressed during his tenure. Moving forward policies on the oversight of genetic, genomic and pharmacogenomic tests has also been a major focus. Gutman's last working day at FDA will be Dec. 9. He will join the faculty at the University of Central Florida early next year and may also do some consulting, he says. Don St. Pierre, OIVD's associate director for policy and operations, will serve as acting director until a replacement is found
People In Brief
Medtronic names new diabetes exec: Pediatric endocrinologist Francine Kaufman will join Medtronic's diabetes business in June as VP of global medical affairs. Kaufman, who will report to the president of the diabetes unit Chris O'Connell, will be a "key architect of the company's global diabetes strategy, as well as a leading voice for multi-disciplinary medical strategy across Medtronic," firm said in a Nov. 24 announcement. She is and will remain a professor at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and is a former president of the American Diabetes Association. Kaufman succeeds Alan Marcus