Venus Medtech Launches Global Advisor Board to Target for International Market

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Venus Medtech (Hangzhou) Inc., a Chinese medical device company specializing in transcatheter valve replacement therapy, has retained four world-renowned experts specialized in interventional cardiovascular to form a Global Advisory Board. The Board members will contribute their insights to Venus Medtech on global innovation of interventional cardiovascular and therapies for structural heart disease. The members of the Board, in alphabetic order by last name, are Ziyad M. Hijazi, Martin B. Leon, Horst Sievert and Ron Waksman.

The Board will meet several times a year at Venus Medtech's offices in China and the United States of America. Together, the Board members will contribute their innovation, technology, clinical trials and therapy expertise and insights to Venus Medtech's research, development and commercialization of its products globally.

The Global Advisory Board members:

• Ziyad M. Hijazi, MD is the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Sidra Medicine. Dr. Hijazi is also the Medical Director of the Sidra Heart Center. As the Chair for the Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Hijazi drives the strategic direction of the Department and integrates research and education priorities into a program of excellent clinical service delivery. He also holds the position of Chair of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College _ Qatar, Sidra's academic partner in medical education. Dr. Hijazi is an interventional cardiologist who specializes in treating congenital and structural heart disease in both children and adults. He is a pioneer in the non-surgical repair of congenital and structural heart defects. He is the Director and Founder of the PICS/AICS meeting, a premiere meeting for interventional therapies for children and adults with congenital and structural heart disease. 
• Martin B. Leon, MD is Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). He is also Director of the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy (CIVT), Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories, and on the Executive Board of the Columbia New York Presbyterian Heart Valve Center. Dr. Leon has served as principal investigator for over 50 clinical trials that have helped shape the field of interventional cardiovascular medicine, including the following studies: STRESS, STARS, Gamma-one, SIRIUS, ENDEAVOR, and most recently, the PARTNER trial, studying the value of transcatheter valve therapy for patients with aortic stenosis. Dr. Leon has co-authored over 1550 publications, has performed over 10,000 interventional procedures, and has had a major impact as a thought-leader and innovator in the expanding sub-specialty of interventional cardiovascular device and drug therapies. Dr. Leon is the Director and Founder of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), the world's premier interventional cardiovascular meeting. Dr. Leon is the Chair, Director and Founder of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), the world's premier interventional cardiovascular meeting. 
• Horst Sievert, MD is the Director of the CardioVascular Center Frankfurt, Germany. He is also an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine/Cardiology at the University of Frankfurt. He is the Chair of CSI, the leading conference in the field of congenital, structural and valvular heart interventions. 
• Ron Waksman, MD specializes in Interventional Cardiology. Dr. Waksman is the associate director of the Division of Cardiology at MedStar Heart Institute. He is also the director of Cardiovascular Research and Advanced Education at the Heart Institute. In addition, Dr. Waksman serves as clinical professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at Georgetown University. He is editor-in-chief of Cardiovascular Revascularization Medicine and on the editorial boards of a number of other publications, including European Heart Journal and Journal of Interventional Cardiology. Dr. Waksman publishes extensively and has authored or co-authored more than 600 articles. He has been the principal investigator for more than 100 research trials. Dr. Waksman serves on the Cardiac Cath Laboratory Peer Review Committee at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and is a MedStar Heart Institute board member.

"The Global Advisory Board is an unrivalled team of interventional cardiovascular and structural heart disease therapies, whose insights into these fields will be a valuable input to our innovation and globalization of our products," said Eric Zi, CEO and Co-founder of Venus Medtech.

"I am truly delighted to be the member of Global Advisory Board of Venus Medtech. Venus Medtech has progressed with Venus valve systems both aortic and pulmonary, retrievable versions, which represents an extraordinary advance for managing patients with critical valvular heart disease in China. I am so excited that China now has entered the world stage of transcatheter valve replacement therapy and Venus Medtech has led the way," said Martin B. Leon, MD the Chair of TCT.

About Venus Medtech (Hangzhou) Inc.

Venus Medtech (Hangzhou) Inc. was founded in 2009, located in Hangzhou National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone (Binjiang), committed to the development and commercialization of minimally invasive treatment of heart valve disease. Venus Medtech is a leading heart valve developer in China?the transcatheter aortic valve, VenusA-Valve is the first transcatheter heart valve system approved by the Chinese Food and Drug Administration (CFDA). It has started a new era of transcatheter aortic valve replacement in China. Venus Medtech is also the first Chinese heart valve producer to carry out global research. The transcatheter pulmonary valve, Venus P-Valve's European Union (CE) clinical study was launched in September 2016 and will be completed within 2018. VenusP-Valve is expected to launch clinical research on FDA in 2019. Innovation leads the future, Venus Medtech will continue to focus on the research and development of structured heart disease medical device and market, accelerate China's innovation and benefit the world.

For more information, visit: www.venusmedtech.com.