About Vesalius

Vesalius Cardiovascular was founded in 2016 by a cardiac surgeon and a business specialist, with a goal to improve and simplify care for patients with mitral valve disease.

Our story

We are a pre-clinical medical device company developing a non-invasive transfemoral mitral valve repair (TMVr) solution for degenerative mitral regurgitation (DMR), a very common human heart valve disease.

Our ideas come directly from the cardiac surgery operating room, and have been engineered into small medical devices. 

Our TMVr solution uses proven surgical techniques (chordal replacement and annuloplasty), and a catheter delivery system. Our repair device reproduces a surgical valve repair without the need to undergo surgery.

Our solution eliminates the burden associated with surgery and allows treatment to be available to almost all patients suffering from the underlying disease.

We are based in Vancouver, Canada.

Our Teams

The Management Team

Vincent Ledoux, MSc

Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Ledoux is a Business Specialist with over 23 years experience in Investment Banking, Corporate Management and Startups. During his tenure at BNP Paribas, the largest bank in Europe, he successfully held several roles internationally and completed the prestigious General Inspection program within the group. Since 2009, he has been deeply involved in Canadian engineering and medical device startups. Vincent holds an MSc in Business Management from EMLyon Business School. Vincent manages the day-to-day activities and coordinates the R&D.

Dr. Peter Skarsgard, MD

Co-founder, Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Skarsgard is a Cardiovascular Surgeon and Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of British Columbia, and Head of the Division of Cardiovascular Surgery at Vancouver General Hospital. His area of expertise is mitral valve repair and complex valvular surgery. Based upon a simple clinical observation, Dr. Skarsgard developed and patented concepts for devices aimed toward percutaneous treatment of mitral regurgitation, utilizing proven surgical principles. 

Ryan Harrington, MEng

Director of Engineering

Mr. Harrington is a Mechanical Engineer with over 8 years experience in engineering design and development, with a primary focus on cardiovascular implants. He was one of the first engineers to join Vesalius and grew with the company to lead the current team of 8 handpicked biomedical engineers. Ryan holds a Master of Engineering degree from University College Dublin in Ireland. He is responsible for all engineering aspects of the device development and regulatory affairs.

The Clinical Advisory

Dr. John G. Webb, MD

Interventional Cardiologist

Dr. John Webb is the McLeod professor of heart valve innovation at the University of British Columbia. As director of the Centre for Heart Valve Innovation at St Paul’s and Vancouver General Hospitals in Vancouver he leads the group that developed and first performed several of the most widely used transcatheter aortic, mitral, tricuspid and pulmonary valve procedures, has travelled to train valve groups in over 25 countries, and has approximately 800 peer-reviewed publications and books. At St Paul’s Hospital he is currently director of interventional cardiology, IC research leading numerous studies, and the IC fellowship program which has trained numerous two-year international post graduate fellows. Service includes various government and UBC/hospital committees, and ongoing valve courses attending by thousands of cardiac specialists from around the world, and volunteer work in Africa. Awards include an Honorary Doctor of Science from Simon Fraser University, the Ethica Gruntzig Award from the European Society of Percutaneous Intervention and EuroPCR, Founder’s Award from Society of Cardiac Angiography and Interventions, Killam Research Prize from UBC, Outstanding Achievement Award from Canadian Association of Interventional Cardiology, Hartzler Master Operator Award from the Cardiovascular Research Foundation and TCT, Career Achievement Award from the Canadian Cardiovascular Society, and the Hugenholtz Innovation Medal from the European Society of Cardiology.

The Clinical Team

Dr. Robert Boone, MD

Interventional Cardiologist

Dr. Boone is an Interventional Cardiologist at St. Paul’s Hospital and Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver, and Clinical Associate Professor in the UBC Faculty of Medicine. He leads the Transcatheter Mitral and Tricuspid Programs at the Centre for Heart Valve Innovation at UBC and is a researcher at the Center for Cardiovascular Innovation. He has had early clinical / first in human involvement with a number of transcatheter valve therapies (Pascal, Evoque, SM3, LuX, and Tiara), and is a recognized national key opinion leader in this area.

Dr. Peter Skarsgard, MD

Co-founder, Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Skarsgard is a Cardiovascular Surgeon and Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of British Columbia, and Head of the Division of Cardiovascular Surgery at Vancouver General Hospital. His area of expertise is mitral valve repair and complex valvular surgery. Based upon a simple clinical observation, Dr. Skarsgard developed and patented concepts for devices aimed toward percutaneous treatment of mitral regurgitation, utilizing proven surgical principles.

Dr. Christopher Durkin, MD

Anaesthesiologist/Echocardiographer

Dr. Durkin is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Anaesthesiology at the University of British Columbia, and a member of the Section of Cardiovascular Anaesthesiology at Vancouver General Hospital. In addition to expertise in cardiovascular physiology and pharmacology, he holds National Board of Echocardiography Certification in Advanced Perioperative Transesophageal Echocardiography, and is an expert in 3D echo for intracardiac structural disease and procedures. 

The Engineering Team

“Can you do this?”        –         “Yes”

Vesalius Roadmap

  • 2017

    Start of engineering

  • 2018

    Start of in-vivo

  • 2019

    Start of QMS

  • 2020

    1st chronic in-vivo
  • 2021

    1st FDA meeting
  • 2022

    Frozen device

  • 2023

    GLP in-vivo study completion

  • 2024

    First-in-human readiness