Healthcare >> CEO Interviews >> July 12, 2011
Warren Bielke was appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer on Nov. 9, 2009. Mr. Bielke has extensive experience with medical device companies as a Co-Founder, CEO, Sales and Marketing Executive and Director. Mr. Bielke served as President and CEO of Advanced Bio-Surfaces, Inc., an orthopedic-implant company. Mr. Bielke was a Co-Founder, President and CEO of InStent Inc., a medical device manufacturer that went public in 1995 and was acquired by Medtronic, Inc., in 1996, subsequent to which Mr. Bielke served as President and CEO of Medtronic InStent. From 1980 to April 1990, Mr. Bielke held positions of increasing responsibility in sales and marketing at Pentax Precision Instrument Corporation, a medical instrument company, serving as Executive Vice President and a Member of its board of directors from October 1989 to April 1990. Mr. Bielke served as National Sales and Product Marketing at Xomed Medical from 1976 to 1980 and served as Regional Sales Manager at Baxter Travenol Health Care from 1970 to 1976. Mr. Bielke currently serves as a Member of the board of directors at the following companies: Vision-Sciences, Inc.; Advanced Bio-Surfaces, Inc.; and Vertebral Technologies, Inc. Mr. Bielke has a B.A. in business management from Minnesota State University Moorhead.Lewis Pell has founded over a dozen successful medical technology companies during the past three decades. In 1979, Mr. Pell founded Pentax Precision Instruments, which was sold to Asahi Optical in 1990. In 1983 he founded American Endoscopy Inc., which was sold to C. R. Bard, Inc., in 1986. In 1984 he founded Versaflex Inc., which was sold to Medtronic, Inc., in 1988. In 1989 he founded Heart Technology Corp., which went public in the U.S. in 1992 and eventually was sold to Boston Scientific in 1995. In 1991 he founded InStent Inc., which became a public company in 1995 and was sold to Medtronic, Inc., in 1996. In 1994 he founded Influence Inc., which was sold to American Medical Systems, Inc., in 1999. Working with Dr. Shlomo Ben-Haim, Mr. Pell founded Biosense Inc. in 1994, which was sold to Johnson & Johnson in 1997. Mr. Pell is currently Chairman and investor in a number of private medical device companies. In 1992, Mr. Pell founded and remains the Chairman of Vision-Sciences, Inc., which is currently a publicly traded company on Nasdaq. Mr. Pell has a B.S. in political science from Brooklyn College.Katherine Wolf joined Vision-Sciences, Inc., as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Corporate Development, in September 2008. Before joining VSI, from 2005 to 2008, Ms. Wolf was a Managing Director at HSBC Securities in its investment banking division, where she was a founding member of the firm's health care group and ran the investment banking medtech effort. Prior to HSBC, she was a Managing Director in the health care group at The Bear Stearns Companies, and before that, at SG Cowen and Furman Selz. Ms. Wolf holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Williams College. Profile
TWST: Please tell us briefly what Vision-Sciences does and a brief historical overview of the company.
Mr. Bielke: Vision-Sciences (VSCI) is a leading company in flexible endoscopy. We were founded in
