Leadership
The leadership team brings deep experience starting companies from first identifying unmet clinical needs through launching thriving businesses that not only perform well but also deliver transformative solutions to market that help doctors and patients.
Corinne Bright PhD, Co-Founder and CEO
Corinne brings over 15 years experience developing devices and drug-device combination products in dermatology, ENT, interventional cardiology, and now neurosurgery as well as experience investing in early-stage start-up companies. She is the cofounder of Tulavi Therapeutics and the founder of Reflex Medical. Prior to that, she was a Principal at ONSET Ventures, focusing on early-stage medical device investments. Previously, she was Vice President, Research and Development at Talima Therapeutics, a privately-held start-up company developing a biodegradable drug-device combination product for the treatment of onychomycosis where she led product development from concept through Phase II clinical trials. Prior to Talima, she was a Biodesign Innovation Fellow at Stanford University focusing on unmet clinical needs in neurology, interventional radiology and neurosurgery.
Corinne holds a B.S. in Engineering from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where she focused on the development of novel therapies for treating spinal cord injury.
Fred Khosravi, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder
Fred (Farhad) Khosravi is the Chairman and CEO of Imperative Care and sits on the board of NeuroLutions. Fred is also the Managing Director of Incept LLC, an Innovations Accelerator. Together, Incept has founded or co-founded twenty-three innovative startup companies with fourteen exits including to IPO, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, Cardinal Health and Teleflex, among others. Incepts companies have developed products that treat over a million patients worldwide every year.
Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Fred was Engineering Manager in the initial management team at Focal, Inc. (acquired by Genzyme Biosurgery), responsible for its cardiovascular products. He was also the Business Unit Manager of the Stent Business at Guidant/ACS where he led the initial design and development team of the highly successful Multilink stent. Prior to ACS (from 1986 through 1989) he held several management positions with Alcon Surgical. Fred is the author or co-author on over 40 medical device patents.
Fred has a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering and graduated cum laude, obtaining a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee Tech University.
Henry Chen JD, Director and Co-Founder
Henry is the Managing Partner and co-Founder of Delos Capital. Mr. Chen also sits on the boards of Imperative Care, Antios Therapeutics, Curamir Therapeutics, Allecra Therapeutics and Curatia Medical.
Prior to establishing Delos, Mr. Chen was a Partner and Co-Head of Asia at Permira, a European private equity firm with global reach and a total committed capital of approximately €44bn.
Prior to joining Permira in 2008, Mr. Chen spent nine years in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs, where he was a Managing Director and co-headed the General Industrials Group, Asia (excluding Japan). Prior to that, Mr. Chen was a corporate finance lawyer with Davis Polk in New York and Hong Kong.
Mr. Chen holds Bachelor and Masters degrees from Harvard University and has a Juris Doctorate degree from Harvard Law School.
Amar Sawhney PhD, Director
Amar brings deep domain experience to the board of directors, having created, developed and commercialized hydrogel-based medical devices and drugs to address unmet clinical needs across ophthalmology, neurosurgery, radiation oncology, cardiovascular interventions, and women’s health, to name a few.
Amar is currently the Chairman, Founder and CEO of Instylla, which is developing liquid embolics for interventional procedures; and Rejoni, which is developing products to prevent intrauterine scarring.
He is also a partner at Incept LLC and Pramand LLC, two health innovation accelerators he has co-founded. Prior to this, he was founder and CEO of Ocular Therapeutix (OCUL), Founder and Chairman of Augmenix (acquired by Boston Scientific), CEO of Confluent Surgical (acquired by Covidien) and co-founder of Focal (FOCL; acquired by Genzyme) and Access Closure (acquired by Cardinal Health). Dr. Sawhney’s innovations are the subject of over 120 issued and pending patents.
He holds a B.Tech. degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi India and an M.S./Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Guneesh Batra, Director
Guneesh is a Senior Investment Associate at Ascension Ventures. Mr. Batra also sits on the boards of Rejoni and Neurolutions.
Prior to Ascension Ventures, Mr. Batra was a member of the Healthcare & Life Sciences Investment Banking group at Brown Gibbons Lang & Company, where he provided M&A advisory services to companies in the medical device & diagnostics and healthcare services sectors. Before that, he worked as an independent consultant on behalf of companies making strategic acquisitions in the medical device sector and provided financial advisory services to healthcare companies in the medical device, healthcare IT, and healthcare services sectors as an Investment Banking Associate at JMP Securities and Synergy Advisors.
He earned his Master of Science in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis and a Bachelor of Arts in Quantitative Economics from the University of California, Irvine.
Steve Williamson, Director
Steve brings a proven track record of product and program launches that have shaped markets and helped to drive business growth globally. Steve has over two decades of medical technology industry experience.
Steve is currently the Chief Commercial Officer at Outset Medical. At Outset, he is leading both the commercial and service organizations as the company is transforming the future of home hemodialysis care. Prior to joining Outset, he served as the Worldwide President for the Peripheral Intervention (PI) business unit of BD, joining BD as part of the C.R. Bard acquisition in 2017.
In the eight years that Steve ran PI, he created a culture of category leadership, drove significant revenue growth through a robust cadence of innovative product launches, numerous acquisitions and global expansion for the End-Stage Kidney Disease (ESKD), Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD), and Oncology businesses. Steve joined Bard from Hologic where he was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the GYN Surgical Products Business.
Steve earned a BS of Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and an MBA from Bentley College.
Gregory D. Casciaro, Director
Gregory D. Casciaro has over 40 years experience in key leadership roles, in the medical device industry across public and private companies.
In 1995, Mr. Casciaro became The President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for General Surgical Innovations. He went on to serve as CEO for a handful of subsequent medtech companies including: Orquest Inc., XTENT, AccessClosure, and most recently Cardiac Dimensions. Greg has since served as a special advisor to the board of directors of Cardiac Dimensions.
Mr. Casciaro has been a member of the board of directors of QT Vascular Ltd. (SGX: QTV), a Singaporean-listed company engaged in the design, assembly and distribution of therapeutic solutions for the minimally invasive treatment of complex vascular diseases, since 2001. He served on the board of directors for Apama Medical Inc., AngioDynamics, Dextera Surgical, and Kerberos Proximal Solutions.
Currently, Mr. Casciaro is a board member at Colospan Ltd, Cytokind Inc., and serves as special advisor to RenalPro Medical Inc.
Mr. Casciaro graduated from Marquette University with a B.S. in Business Administration.
John Buckley, Director
John brings 40 years of successful financial leadership in the medical technology field. Previously, he was a Co-Founder and CFO of Imperative Care, Inc., a company focused on developing the next generation of stroke care across the entire patient journey. He also served as CFO at Apama Medical, an atrial fibrillation company (acquired by Boston
Scientific Corporation, NYSE: BSX); Access Closure, Inc., a leading player in the vascular closure space (acquired by Cardinal Health in 2014) and Acologix, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on osteo-renal diseases. John spent 16 years at Ernst & Young LLP where he was a Partner and served as Director of the Pacific Northwest Life Science Practice. John currently serves as a senior advisor to Imperative Care, Inc. and to Kandu Health, a digital health company focused on empowering stroke survivors.
John received his B.B.A. in Accounting from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he currently serves as a board member of the UW-Whitewater Foundation. He is a Certified Public Accountant (Inactive Status).
Tara Butler MD, Director
Tara brings a deep clinical background, a passion for developing and commercializing medical technologies, and the unique perspective that comes from her venture capital role representing healthcare providers in partnership with Ascension to the BOD.
Tara is Founder and Managing Director of Iyengar Capital Partners, investing in early-stage medical device and healthcare services companies. Previously, she was a managing director at Ascension Ventures investing in medical devices for almost 20 years, she currently sits on the board of Instylla, Imperative Care, Rejoni, NeuroLutions, Ivantis, Cardionomic, and CSA Medical.
Tara was previously a board member or observer at Apama Medical (acquired by Boston Scientific), Augmenix (acquired by Boston Scientific), Novasys (acquired by Verathon Medical), CHF Solutions (acquired by Gambro), Confluent Surgical (acquired by Tyco), Ekos (acquired by BTG), HemoSphere (acquired by CryoLife), Ocular Therapeutix (NASD: OCUL), Stereotaxis (NASD: STXS), MindFrame (acquired by Boston Scientific), TomoTherapy (NASD:TOMO), and EBR Systems. Prior to Ascension Ventures, Tara completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Washington University in St. Louis. She previously held positions in business development at Medtronic and finance at Honeywell.
She holds a BS in Economics and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and an MD from the University of Pennsylvania.
