R. Kevin Plemmons

Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Plemmons has over 30 years of experience in the medical industry with the majority of those years concentrating in the field of interventional cardiology with an emphasis on early stage start-up opportunities. Mr. Plemmons has held positions in sales; sales management, executive management and CEO level designations. Mr. Plemmons is co-founder of Innovative Cardiovascular Solutions and has served as their CEO since 2013. Mr. Plemmons graduated from Western Michigan University where he received his BBA degree.

Laura Minarsch

Vice President, Clinical

Laura Minarsch is a senior executive in the medical device industry with 30+ years of experience in clinical development and trial strategy, including the design, development and execution of first-in-human (FIH) studies. Laura joined ICS at its inception in 2013 and has been instrumental in defining key scientific relationships with opinion leaders and investigators contributing to the ongoing needs of the neuro embolic protection space. Throughout her career, Laura has facilitated numerous clinical studies in the interventional cardiology and structural heart spaces – evaluating devices for PCI, TAVR, TMVR, and heart failure. Laura’s efforts contributed to the acquisitions of Embolic Protection, Inc. (acquired by Boston Scientific), Lazarus Effect (acquired by Covidien), Maya Medical (acquired by Covidien), Apama Medical (acquired by Boston Scientific), and Securus Medical (acquired by Boston Scientific). Laura is a registered cardiovascular invasive specialist RCIS, RT (R) and certified clinical research professional CCRP. She holds an A.S. in Radiologic Technology from Fullerton College and a B.S. from the University of Redlands. Laura is on the editorial board of Cath Lab Digest and has co-authored numerous scientific publications.

Carrie Neuberger

Vice President, Regulatory

Carrie Neuberger is a medical device industry executive with a proven track record of success in developing strategic clinical and regulatory pathways for emerging new medical devices and novel technologies that address unmet clinical needs. She has worked with Innovative Cardiovascular Solutions (ICS) since early 2014. Her experience includes: VP of Regulatory Affairs at Maya Medical (acquired by Covidien, 2012), VP RA/CA/QA at Lazarus Effect (acquired by Medtronic, 2015), VP RA/CA/QA at Nfocus Neuromedical (previously CardioVasc, acquired by Covidien, 2013), and regulatory expert for Becker Consulting (Washington DC). Carrie holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia, has served on the RAC Certification Board for the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society and as Chairman for the SF Bay Area RAPS Chapter. She has been an industry speaker alongside the Food and Drug Administration leadership and with Notified Bodies on numerous topics concerning both US and European regulatory matters.

Evangelia Evdaimon

Vice President, Quality

Evangelia Evdaimon has more than 15 years of experience in developing and maintaining Quality Management Systems, Design History Files, Technical Files, verification & validation strategies and software development lifecycle documentation for product submissions and certifications (i.e. FDA 510(k), ISO 13485, CE Marking). Evangelia is a professional auditor assessing compliance to quality, security and safety national and international standards including FDA 21CFR Part 820, FDA 21CFR Part 11, HIPAA, and ISO (International Organization for Standardization).

Evangelia was the Chairperson of the Issues and Methods Committee and a Director of the Executive Council of the North Carolina Chapter of The Society of Quality Assurance (NCCSQA) for 10 years and continues to be an active member of several professional quality assurance and regulatory associations organizations including Society of Quality Assurance (SQA), American Society of Quality (ASQ), Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS), North Carolina Regulatory Affairs Forum (NCRAF), Electronic Concepts Technical Discussion Group (ECTD Group).

William Merhi, DO, FACC

President and Chief Scientific Officer

William Merhi DO, FACC is the interventional director of the structural heart program at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is also the inventor of the EMBLOK catheter and currently serves as the President and Chief Scientific Officer of Innovative Cardiovascular Solutions. He completed his cardiology and interventional cardiology fellowship at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Azeem Latib, MD

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Azeem Latib, MD is an interventional cardiologist at San Raffaele Hospital and EMO-GVM Centro Cuore Columbus in Milan, Italy. He started his career in South Africa and obtained his specialization in internal medicine and cardiology at Groote Schuur Hospital of the University of Cape Town where he is now honorary senior lecturer. In 2008, he obtained his masters in interventional cardiology in Milan at San Raffaele Hospital where he is now co-director of research and structural heart disease. Dr. Latib has dedicated his efforts to maintain both a research and a clinical approach to interventional cardiology. He has authored over 400 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books. His interests and experience lie in complex coronary interventions, structural heart disease and new device innovation. He is actively involved in pre-clinical animal work for coronary and structural interventions. He has also performed a number of first-in-human procedures and is principal investigator in numerous CE-mark and multi-center studies.

Federico De Marco, MD, PhD

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Federico De Marco, MD, PhD is the head of the Structural Heart Disease Interventions Unit in IRCCS Policlinico San Donato in Milan, Italy. He completed his medical degree and obtained his specialization in Cardiology at the University of Milan. He was a clinical and research fellow in Interventional Cardiology at the Institut Cardiovasculaire Paris Sud in Massy, France between 2005 and 2007. From 2007 to 2015 he worked as a senior staff interventional cardiologist at Niguarda Hospital in Milan, focusing mostly on complex coronary intervention and transcatheter aortic valve implantation. He is the author and co-author of 150 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. He has a strong interest in new technology in the field of structural heart disease interventions particularly for the treatment of aortic and mitral valve disease, where he is involved in multiple CE-mark studies.

Jeffery Popma, MD

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Jeffrey Popma, MD is the Director, Interventional Cardiology Clinical Services at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Popma received his BA in Economics from Stanford University, and received an MD with highest distinction from Indiana University School of Medicine. He completed his internship, residency, chief residency and fellowship at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He also completed an interventional cardiology fellowship at the University of Michigan. Dr. Popma is the Past President of the Society for Cardiac Angiography and Intervention, and a Past Co-Chair of the Interventional Council of the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Popma sits on the editorial boards of several publications, and reviews for several cardiology periodicals. Dr. Popma has over 300 published peer reviewed manuscripts. Dr. Popma also directs the BIDMC Angiographic Core Laboratory, and over the past 15 years, these trials have included a broad array of new technology, including bare metal stents, drug eluting stents, distal protection devices, total occlusion devices, and carotid and peripheral revascularization procedures. Dr. Popma’s primary clinical interest is currently the use of percutaneous aortic and mitral valve replacement for patients with high-risk for surgery.

Andrew Kim

Sr. Director, Therapy Development

Andrew Kim has 15+ years of experience in the medical device industry, focusing mainly on the structural heart space. Before joining ICS, Andrew was Director of Therapy Development at Mitralign, leading the EU tricuspid project. Prior, he was Sr. Manager of Operations & Clinical at Direct Flow Medical from clinical study stage to commercialization of their TAVI system. He also brings experience from GDS (now Ancora Heart), Maya Medical (acquired by Covidien), Apama (acquired by Boston Scientific), and Imperial College London. Andrew’s background is in R&D. He was an engineer at Medtronic Endovascular, eValve (acquired by Abbott), and Crux Biomedical (acquired by Volcano Corp). He holds a BSci in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University.

Puneet Khanna, MD

Strategic Board Advisor

Puneet Khanna, MD is the Co-director of the Cardiac Cath Lab as well as the Transcatheter Valve program at Eisenhower Medical Center (Rancho Mirage, California), where he has practiced cardiology for the last 25 years. In addition, he has been involved with the evolution and development of new medical devices for the last 15 years and serves on the scientific advisory board of several medical device companies. Dr. Khanna graduated from the Armed Forces Medical College in India and completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. This was followed by four years of cardiology fellowship at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Dr. Khanna is board-certified in the subspecialties of cardiology, interventional cardiology, vascular medicine and endovascular medicine.

Gary McCord

Strategic Board Advisor

Gary McCord holds over 30 years of sales, management and leadership experience with numerous early-stage companies such as TriReme Medical, Sapheon, Cardiovascular Systems, Inc., Fox Hollow Technologies, Interventional Technologies, Inc., Ventritex, Heart Technologies and Pilot Cardiovascular Systems. All of these early-stage companies positively exited with such companies as Bard, Boston Scientific, St Jude Medical, Guidant, Covidien, Medtronic and Teleflex. Currently, Gary is Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing at Venclose, Inc., a privately held early-stage venous closure company based in San Jose, California. Gary started his career at Schneider Cardiovascular, a division of Pfizer, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications degree from the University of Missouri, Columbia.

Bradley Brown

Director, Clinical Affairs

Bradley Brown is a life sciences executive with broad experience across the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. Brad has 20+ years of experience in corporate operations and clinical research, with an emphasis on strategic development and the execution of multinational clinical programs. Brad has contributed significantly to the development and execution of numerous clinical studies for the advancement of emerging new medical devices and novel technologies that have addressed unmet clinical needs within interventional cardiology, peripheral vascular, structural heart and cardiovascular diagnostics. Prior to joining ICS, Brad co-founded G3 Therapeutics and has held leadership positions for Keystone Heart, Novate Medical, CardioDx, Ostial Corporation and Abbott Vascular. He has co-authored several scientific publications in advanced cardiovascular imaging, genetics, and metabolomics. Brad holds a BS in Exercise Science from the University of New England, a MS in Cardiac Rehabilitation & Exercise Science from East Stroudsburg University, and a MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University.