Frank Ahmann for MateraCor
Aliso Viejo, CA, November 16, 2020. MateraCor, Inc., a medtech start-up developing novel and practical approaches to prevent and reverse advanced heart failure, announced the addition of J. Alan Crunkleton, MD, Ph.D. to the management leadership team as Chief Operating Officer.
Dr. Crunkleton is a highly experienced entrepreneur whose hands-on experience spans all strategic and operational aspects of start-up companies from foundation to exit. He has a successful track record translating market needs and opportunities into products and rapidly establishing regulatory approvals, reimbursement channels, and global distribution. As CEO of Trifoil Imaging, he led the successful turnaround of this preclinical imaging company after he founded and led Correx, Inc., a minimally invasive aortic stenosis device company, and Boreas, Inc., a start-up that commercialized 4.2-Kelvin cryogenic cooler technology and was acquired by a global partner. Alan holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as an MD from the University of Massachusetts.
“We are delighted to have Alan join the MateraCor team and expect him to be a major contributor as we transition to the clinical stage of development of our lead candidate. Alan is already demonstrating his strategic planning and execution skills,” stated Frank Ahmann, President & CEO. Dr. Crunkleton remarked that “proving the value of MateraCor’s heart failure device therapy will require superb execution considering the huge potential but also the complexities of advanced heart failure. I am excited to contribute to this effort in fundamentally improving the heart failure patients’ lives.”
MateraCor, Inc. is a Southern California - based start-up developing novel approaches to prevent and reverse advanced heart failure, the chronic debilitating condition that represents the most common hospitalization cause in the elderly population with a poor prognosis of 50% survival within 5 years of diagnosis. MateraCor’s lead candidate, Trans-Catheter Myocardial Restoration (TCMR) consists of an implantable hydrogel and a minimally invasive endocardial delivery system to treat dilated cardiomyopathy. Injected directly into the damaged heart muscle, the hydrogel reduces cardiac stress and reshapes the ventricle leading to marked improvements in exercise capacity and patient well-being. TCMR is an investigational device not approved for sale.