SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- HeartBeam, Inc., a cardiac diagnostic mHealth company, today announced it has expanded its Board of Directors adding two seasoned professionals, Rich Ferrari, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Marga Ortigas-Wedekind, a marketing executive in the cardiac monitoring space.

Rich Ferrari co-founded De Novo Ventures in 2000 and is managing director. De Novo Ventures has $650 million under management and is dedicated to Medical Devices and Biotechnology.
 
Prior to founding De Novo Ventures, Rich was a successful CEO of two publicly traded medical technology companies. Rich was a co-founder of CardioThoracic Systems (CTS), the market leader in disposable instruments and systems for performing minimally invasive beating heart bypass surgery, which was acquired by Guidant for $350 million in November 1999. He also led the company to its initial public offering. Prior to CTS, he was CEO at Cardiovascular Imaging Systems which he also took public. CVIS was the first and leading developer of ultrasound imaging catheters which was eventually acquired for $125 million by Boston Scientific. Rich remains very active as Executive Chairman and mentoring many first time CEO's.
 
Mr. Ferrari also serves as a faculty member of the Stanford Biodesign Emerging Entrepreneurs Forum, as well as a board member for the Stanford | Coulter Foundation for Translational Medicine. Mr. Ferrari is the recipient of the Mallinckrodt Award for Excellence in Medicine and has been a finalist for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Rich holds a BS degree from Ashland University and an MBA from the University of South Florida.

Marga Ortigas-Wedekind has 30 years of leadership experience in medical and health technology companies both large and small, public and private, with two significant ones in the cardiovascular space.  She is currently Chief Commercial Strategy Officer at the Fogarty Institute, an educational nonprofit in the global MedTech ecosystem. Before that she was the EVP of Marketing and Payor Relations at iRhythm Technologies, a digital healthcare provider of cardiac monitoring services. Prior to that, she was the EVP of Global Marketing and Product Development at Omnicell, Inc., a developer of automated medication dispensing systems and analytics, heading up Marketing, International Sales and Operations and Engineering. Before then, she was the SVP of Marketing, Development and Clinical Affairs at Xoft, Inc., a start-up which developed and commercialized disruptive technology for cancer radiation therapy. She began her career at Guidant Corporation Vascular Intervention where she had various roles in Global Marketing, Strategic Planning and International.

Ms. Ortigas-Wedekind received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA in Political Economics from Wellesley College.

"We are truly excited about Rich and Marga joining our Board. They share our enthusiasm for our groundbreaking technology and have been making tremendous contributions from day one of joining the team. Their active involvement will make a huge positive difference as we approach FDA submission followed by the commercialization phase."  — Branislav Vajdic, Ph.D., HeartBeam Founder and CEO. 

HeartBeam is a Silicon Valley based development stage company with a proprietary cardiovascular mHealth technology. As a diagnostic software company, its focus - in terms of medical value - is to go well beyond many single-lead ECG technologies that are currently in the market. HeartBeam's iCardiologist™ comprises a credit-card-sized 12-lead capable ECG machine and a cloud-based expert software system that can detect a heart attack with accuracy that is indifferent from a cardiologist. The company's 3D signal-based technology addresses the totality of all cardiovascular patients, estimated to comprise 80 million individuals in the US only. Please visit www.heartbeam.com to learn more.

For media inquiries, please contact Jim O'Rourke at 925-719-4345 or jorourke@heartbeam.com

Contact: Jim O'Rourke
Phone: 925-719-4345
Email: jorourke@heartbeam.com

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SOURCE HeartBeam, Inc.