CartiHeal Adds New Board Member

CartiHeal Ltd., a privately held medical device developer of cartilage regeneration technology, has appointed Leanna Caron to its Board of Directors.

Caron has served as a senior healthcare executive for the past 20 years. As vice president and general manager at Sanofi, Caron managed the global commercial operations for cell therapy and regenerative medicine. Her leadership of the cell therapy business, including cartilage repair products, covered oversight of regulatory affairs, manufacturing, business development, commercial operations, and strategic planning. Caron has led commercial development of globally marketed cartilage repair products. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a deep understanding and a proven success record in leading international teams to successfully launch blockbuster as well as niche and orphan products, CartiHeal executives said. In addition to her most recent role with Sanofi,Caron has held senior positions at Genzyme and Merck in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Caron recently served as an advisory board member of WEST (Advancing Women in the Business of Science and Technology) and as an elected board member and member of the executive committee of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, a global Washington-based academic and industry organization. In March 2013, Ms. Caron was named as one of the top 50 Global stem cell influencers.

“Our team is looking forward to working closely with Ms. Caron to advance CartiHeal’s cartilage regeneration flagship product, Agili-C, towards commercialization,” Founder/CEO Nir Altschuler said. “Our initial clinical results reinforce the belief that our device may represent a paradigm shift in the way cartilage defects are treated. Ms. Caron is well-versed and well-respected in nurturing breakthroughs of this type. She is one of the most experienced executives in the cartilage repair field and we are certain that she will contribute a great deal toward achieving the company’s goals.”

“We are pleased, and honored to have Ms. Caron on board,” agreed Boaz Lifchitz, CartiHeal’s board chairman and a general partner/co-founder of Peregrine Ventures. “We are confident that the addition of an executive of Ms. Caron’s stature will advance our plans and commitment to long-term value creation.”

Headquartered in Israel, CartiHeal has developed the Agili-C implant, which has shown to promote regeneration of true hyaline cartilage and its underlying subchondral bone, simultaneously without the use of cells, growth factors or other exogenous agents.

CartiHeal’s investors are Elron, Accelmed, Access Medical ventures and Peregrine.