CardioMech Appoints Richard Nehm as President and CEO, and Mark Novotny as Chairman

TRONDHEIM, Norway--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- CardioMech AS announced today that it has appointed Richard Nehm as President and CEO, and Mark Novotny as Chairman of the Board of Directors, effective immediately. Rick and Mark join the company alongside founders Jacob Bergsland, Chief Medical Officer, and Nikolai Hiorth, Chief Technology Officer.

Rick Nehm is a seasoned medical device professional in the structural heart market with nearly 20 years of leadership experience in sales, marketing and business development across large and small companies. His expertise in product development and commercialization within interventional cardiology, cardiac surgery and structural heart will help drive the development of the CardioMech program. Rick previously held leadership roles with Boston Scientific Corp., Tendyne Holdings Inc. (Abbott) and ATS Medical (Medtronic). Rick is a native of Roseville, Minn., U.S., and is currently living in Alingsås, Sweden.

Jacob Bergsland, M.D., Cardiac Surgeon, Founder and CMO, said, “There are more than 400,000 patients around the world that suffer from a leaky mitral valve due to prolapse or flail that are at a high-risk for a cardiac surgery. We are pleased to welcome Rick and Mark to help us accelerate the development of our catheter-based technology that is designed to treat these patients with a transfemoral/transseptal access without the risks associated with open-heart surgery, cardiac arrest and the heart-lung bypass machine.”

“I am thrilled to join this extraordinary team and lead CardioMech down the path towards commercialization of this profound technology. Our objective is to significantly improve the standard of care for very sick patients suffering with mitral valve prolapse and flail,” said Rick Nehm, President and CEO.

Mark Novotny joins CardioMech with 28 years of experience in MedTech, where he has held leadership roles across cardiovascular, critical care and spinal surgery throughout the U.S., Asia and Europe. Mark is currently the President and CEO of Spinal Stabilization Technologies based in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., and has previously held leadership roles at Boston Scientific Corp. and CeloNova BioSciences Inc.

“Transcatheter chordal repair is a hot segment with two exits in the last 11 months. The CardioMech device is highly differentiated, and we will build significant shareholder value in a short period of time. I am excited to join this team and guide this exceptional technology to market,” said Mark Novotny, Chairman.

About CardioMech AS
Headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, CardioMech AS is a privately held company that is developing a transcatheter alternative to cardiac surgery for the placement of artificial chords for the mitral heart valve.

Caution: The CardioMech device is in the early R&D development phase and is NOT available for sale in any region of the world.

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