Name: Liane Teplitsky
New title: Chief operating officer, Pulse Biosciences
Previous title: CEO, Artedrone
Pulse Biosciences has appointed Liane Teplitsky as chief operating officer, giving the former Abbott employee a key role in efforts to develop and launch a pulsed field ablation device.
In March, Pulse committed to spending most of its R&D budget on the nPulse Cardiac Catheter, a PFA device for treating atrial fibrillation. Encouraged by first-in-human data on 150 patients in Europe, the company decided to cut investment in a surgical clamp program and spending on sales and marketing in support of its percutaneous soft-tissue ablation system.
As COO, Teplitsky will lead Pulse’s clinical, regulatory, quality and commercial functions as the company executes its new strategy. Pulse CEO Paul LaViolette said in a statement that Teplitsky’s experience will be instrumental in accelerating the company’s strategic priorities.
Teplitsky most recently served as CEO of Artedrone, the developer of an autonomous robotic technology for stroke treatment. Affluent Medical recently acquired Artedrone and merged it with Caranx Medical to create Carvolix. Affluent CEO Sébastien Ladet took the top job at Carvolix.
Before joining Artedrone, Teplitsky worked as president of global robotics, technology and data solutions at Zimmer Biomet. Teplitsky spent almost 10 years at Abbott and St. Jude Medical before joining Zimmer. The executive’s career at the companies, which merged in 2017, included roles in cardiovascular disease and electrophysiology.
At Pulse, Teplitsky will oversee a pivotal nPulse Cardiac Catheter trial in the U.S. and Europe, plus planned regulatory filings. The Food and Drug Administration approved the trial last year. Pulse enrolled the first patients this month. Pulse is assessing the device’s safety and ability to isolate all targeted pulmonary veins in about 215 drug-resistant, symptomatic, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation patients.
To support the trial, Pulse has expanded Chief Medical Officer David Kenigsberg’s role at the company. Kenigsberg will maintain his active routine clinical practice while providing “increased leadership capacity” at Pulse as the company runs the pivotal trial.
Teplitsky and Kenigsberg form part of a C-suite that began to take shape early last year, when LaViolette became CEO and Jon Skinner joined as CFO. The appointments followed a period of leadership turnover at the company.
