Jeffery Bleich, M.D.

Founder, Baxano, Inc.

Jeff co-founded Baxano® in 2005. He was President and CEO of the company for four years. Dr. Bleich has over 20 years of clinical experience, with board certification in Pain Management, as well as in Anesthesiology. He currently practices anesthesiology at Stanford University Medical Center; is an executive in residence with Prospect Venture Partners, a healthcare dedicated venture capital firm; and contributes to medical device development at IDEO, a company that specializes in innovation and design.

Jeff completed a Masters Degree as a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a Pain Management fellowship at the University of Washington, an anesthesiology residency at UCLA, an M.D. from the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical School, and a B.S. in Biology from Stanford University.

Russell Hirsch, M.D., Ph.D.

Managing Director, Prospect Venture Partners

Russell co-founded Prospect Venture Partners II and III. Prior to establishing Prospect Venture Partners II and III, Dr. Hirsch was a member of the Health Care Technology Group at Mayfield. Russell played a key role in Mayfield’s investment activities in the biotechnology and medical device sectors. Prior to Mayfield, Russell was at the University of California San Francisco, where he was engaged in biomedical research. In addition to serving on Baxano’s board, Russell serves or has served on the Board of Directors of Intuitive Surgical, Hansen Medical, Opus Medical, Orquest, AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Visiogen, DFine, SentreHEART, Portola Pharmaceuticals, and several other privately-held companies.

Russell holds an M.D. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco and a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Chicago.

Sumeet Jain

Former Partner, CMEA Capital

At CMEA, Sumeet was a part of the firm’s investments in disruptive technology companies.  In addition to Baxano, he has been intimately involved in a number of the firm’s investments in technology and medical device companies.

Sumeet brings a perspective to investing that comes from having been intimately involved with entrepreneurship and technology from multiple angles - as a startup executive and operator, an engineer, a strategy consultant, and an investment banker.

Prior to CMEA, Sumeet was with Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he focused on mergers and acquisitions as well as equity and debt financing transactions for many venture and private equity backed companies across several sectors. Sumeet also led sales and business development at iManage, a content management software company until its acquisition by Interwoven in 2003. Previously, Sumeet was with Personify, an early web analytics software company (acquired by Accrue Software), where he helped grow the company with roles in product management, business development, sales and professional services. Sumeet began his career with Andersen Consulting (Accenture) where he worked on strategy for companies in Andersen Technology Ventures portfolio.

Sumeet has a bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from Cornell University and an MBA, Entrepreneurial Management and Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Frank M. Phillips, M.D.

Midwest Orthopaedics

Professor, Director, Section of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery

Rush University Medical Center

Dr. Phillips specializes in the spine and has special interests in cervical and lumbar reconstructive surgery. He also has expertise in motion preserving and minimally invasive spinal procedures. Dr. Phillips has participated in the development of a number of minimally invasive spinal techniques and also motion preservation technologies. Dr. Phillips’ basic science research efforts have focused on biomechanics of the spinal reconstruction as well as biologic strategies including gene therapy to promote spinal fusion and intervertebral disc regeneration. 

Before joining Midwest Orthopaedics, Dr. Phillips served as the Director of The Spine Center at The University of Chicago. Dr. Phillips is currently a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Head of the Section of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery at Rush University Medical Center. He has published and lectured extensively on spinal topics. He also frequently directs spinal educational courses for other spinal surgeons. Dr. Phillips is currently the Vice President of the Society for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery and is on various committees of the North American Spine Society and the Spine Arthroplasty Society. He has also received numerous research grants. Dr. Phillips is the Principal Investigator of various national US FDA clinical trials evaluating cervical and lumbar disc replacement procedures.

A medical graduate from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, Dr. Phillips completed his orthopaedic residency at The University of Chicago Medical Center. In addition, he served a spine fellowship at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.  He is Board Certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery. 

Tony Recupero

President and CEO, Baxano, Inc.

Tony brings over 20 years of experience in the medical device industry to Baxano, Inc. Tony served as Vice President of Sales for Kyphon, Inc., joining the company at commercial inception and spearheading Kyphon’s significant revenue growth over a period of five years.  At Kyphon, Tony led one of the largest and most effective direct sales forces in the spine market.  Prior to Kyphon, Tony was the National Sales Manager for Sulzer Spine-Tech, Inc., where he was responsible for revenue growth of the BAK fusion cage and other spinal hardware. Tony started his medical device career in sales and sales management with United States Surgical Corporation. He has previously served on the board of directors for Spineology, Inc. and Aragon Surgical, Inc. 

Tony is a graduate of The General Management Program at Harvard Business School and holds a B.A. in Communications from State University of New York at Albany.

Dave Schulte

Director, Kaiser Permanente Ventures

Dave has extensive experience working with entrepreneurs and growth companies as a venture capitalist and investment banker. He joined Kaiser Permanente Ventures in 2003 and focuses primarily on investments in medical device technology in the cardiovascular, orthopedics, respiratory and diabetes markets. He has also completed investments in health care services companies. 

Dave serves on the Board of Directors of Atheromed, GMD, Hemosphere and Vapotherm. He is or was actively involved with KP’s investments in Glumetrics, Proteus Biomedical, Pulmonx, ValenTx, Valeritas, CHF Solutions (sold to Gambro) and Nursefinders (sold to Goldman Sachs). 

Prior to Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Dave executed health care and technology equity, debt and M&A transactions for JPMorgan, UBS, and Piper Jaffray. Dave earned a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts from St. John’s University.

Jim Shapiro

General Partner, Kearny Venture Partners

Jim has been a general partner of Kearny Venture Partners and its predecessor funds since January 2000. He focuses on investments in the Medical Device industry. Jim currently serves on the boards of directors of CVRx, Hansen Medical, SpinalMotion, TranS1 and TriVascular2. He is a co-founder of SpinalMotion. Mr. Shapiro has previously served on the boards of directors of companies including Appriva (acquired by eV3), Eyeonics (acquired by Bausch & Lomb), Fox Hollow Technologies (acquired by ev3), LuMend (acquired by Johnson and Johnson), TriVascular (acquired by Boston Scientific), and X Technologies (acquired by Guidant). From 1984 to 1999, Jim led Alex. Brown’s healthcare investment banking practice on the West Coast, providing financing and M&A advisory services to both emerging growth and established healthcare companies. Before joining Brown, Jim was an associate at Goldman Sachs and a financial analyst at Bank of America.

Jim holds an A.B. with laboratory research honors from Princeton University, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Rodrick Young

Venture Partner, Three Arch Partners

Rod has been a Venture Partner at Three Arch Partners since 2006 where he focuses on investments in medical device and healthcare service opportunities. Prior to Three Arch Partners, Rod was President and CEO of Vivant Medical, a Three Arch Partners medical device portfolio company that was acquired by Tyco.  Prior to Vivant, Rod was President & CEO of Targesome, Chairman & CEO of General Surgical Innovations, also a Three Arch Partners medical device portfolio company that was acquired by Tyco, President & CEO of Focus Surgery, President of Toshiba America MRI, and President & COO of Diasonics. He has been closely involved in the formation and growth of many Three Arch portfolio companies.

Rod holds a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from The Harvard Business School.