Fred Khosravi

Fred (Farhad) Khosravi is a Silicon Valley medical device entrepreneur who has co-founded twelve medical companies and held senior management positions in both large and small enterprises. Fred is the Managing Director of Incept LLC, a health sciences and technology accelerator and development company. Since its inception in 1998, Incept LLC has started sixteen companies, which have collectively developed innovative medical technologies that treat nearly a million patients around the world annually. To accomplish this, Incept has supported its companies to raise over $500 million in development and venture financing for its companies. In turn, Incept-founded companies have distributed over $2 billion of aggregate returns to their shareholders.

When Incept was founded in 1998, Fred served as Chairman of Confluent Surgical, Inc, a biomaterials company focused on internal wound-healing solutions for Ob-Gyn, Neuro/spinal, and general surgery application (acquired Sep 2006 by Tyco Corporation NYSE:TYC). Simultaneously, Fred served as President and CEO of Embolic Protection, Inc., which as acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) in 2001, focusing on the first US approved technology to prevent distal vascular embolization. In 2002, Fred became co-founder and Director of MarketRx, Inc., a marketing informatics company providing software-based products and services and its proprietary analytical models to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device manufacturers, acquired Sep 2007 by Cognizant Corporation (NASDAQ:CTSH). In 2003, Fred co-founded AccessClosure, Inc., where he served as President and CEO, and later as Executive Chairman. AccessClosure developed the first in the US closure device for vascular interventional puncture site designed for patient comfort, and was acquired by Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH)in 2014. In 2004, Fred co-founded Sadra Medical, Inc. (where he served as co-founder and Chairman), a venture-backed medical device company dedicated to developing the first repositionable/retrievable percutaneous aortic valve in the world. Sadra Medical was acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) in 2010. In 2007, Fred co-founded Occular Therapeutix, Inc., where he served as its Director prior to the company’s IPO in 2014 (Nasdaq:OCUL). Ocular is focused on development of innovative drug-device combination products for Ophthalmic application. During the same year, Fred co-founded Nextplane, Inc., where he continues to serves as Chairman. Nextplane is an angel funded IT company providing secure and scalable federation and management solutions for Unified Communications (UC) platforms, including Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Jabber, etc. In 2008 Fred formed Ostial Corp., a privately-held medical device company focused on development of a novel new stenting technology for treatment of aorto-ostial diseases, where he currently serves as co-founder and CEO. Ostial currently commercializes its product worldwide, Flash Dual Balloon Ostial System, which is the first and only directed solution to ostial stenting. In 2009, Fred co-founded HotSpur, Inc., where he served as Executive Chairman through its acquisition by Teleflex Corp (NYSE:TFX). Hotspur was focused on development of innovative technologies for treatment of dialysis grafts. Additonally, in 2010 Fred helped co-found Claret Medical, Inc., where he currently serves Executive Chairman. Claret is a privately held company developing a novel cerbral protection technology to minimize stroke rates associated with minimally-invasive structural heart interventions. In 2011 Fred helped co-incubate two new companies Maya Medical, Inc. and Apama Medical, Inc. with Shifamed LLC (http://www.shifamed.com). Fred was the Executive Chairman of Maya, which developed an RF ablation technology for renal artery denervation addressing hypertension in patients. Maya was acquired by Covidien Corp., now part of Medtronic (NYSE:MDT). Apama, where Fred currently serves as the Executive Chairman, is a venture-backed company that is focused on developing the world’s first oe-shot RF abalation technology for treatment of atrial fibriliation.

In addition, Fred served on the boards of Kerberos Proximal Solutions, Inc., dedicated to developing an innovative mechanical thrombectomy device for the vascular system, utilizing rinspiration=rinsing+aspiration (Acquired in Oct 2006 by FoxHollow, Inc. NASD:FOXH), and Advanced Stent Technologies, Inc., a development stage company focused on treatment of bifurcation vascular diseases (Acquired in April 2004 by Boston Scientific Corporation, NYSE:BSX)

Fred started his first venture-backed company in 1995, where he served as Founder, Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of EndoTex Interventional Systems, Inc., a company in the carotid stent market (EndoTex was acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation NYSE:BSX in Jan 2007).

Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Fred was Engineering Manager in the initial management team at Focal, Inc. (acquired by Genzyme Biosurg Nasdaq:GZBX), responsible for its cardiovascular products. He was also the Business Unit Manager of the Stent Business at Guidant/ACS where he led the initial design and development team of the highly successful Multilink stent. Prior to ACS (from 1986 through 1989) he held several management positions with Alcon Surgical Corp., developing pioneering small-incision intraocular lenses.

Fred is either the author or co-author on over 160 issued or filed patent applications, involving unique and novel medical devices. Fred has a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering and graduated cum laude, obtaining a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee Tech University.

Fred is also a member of the Board of Trustees at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS.org), a bipartisan Washington think tank focused on policy initiatives dedicated to finding ways to sustain American prominence and prosperity as a force for good in the world. In addition he is a Convening Board Member for a nonprofit called Technology for America (T4A.org), with a strategic vision to engage and create bridges between the technology community and the government focusing on American competitive leadership.

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