San Antonio—Invictus Medical, the San Antonio maker of a medical device designed to alleviate pressure on the heads of newborns, has a new chief executive officer.
Invictus board member Dennis Kane is now the company’s acting CEO, according to Invictus chief financial officer Eric Eisbrenner. Eisbrenner deferred further commentary to Kane, who has not responded to calls for comment.
Kane is taking over for Tom Roberts, who had been the company’s CEO since 2012. Under Roberts, Invictus gained $5 million in venture funding through 2014, and another $3 million last year (with the goal of raising as much as $6.5 million total), according to regulatory filings. It is unclear whether Roberts, who did not respond to an e-mail request for comment, is still involved in the company.
Kane is a former executive at Phadia AB, a Swedish company that sold allergy and autoimmune disease diagnostics. Phadia sold to Thermo Fisher Scientific for $3.5 billion in 2011 and was renamed ImmunoDiagnostics, a brand that it still operates under. Phadia was originally created as Pharmacia Diagnostics, an independent company established after Pfizer acquired Pharmacia (and Kalamazoo, MI-based Upjohn Company) in 2003.
Invictus’ device, called GelShield, is a headband that is placed around a baby’s head and is intended to prevent pressure from building on the skull, which can cause “flat spots” that sometimes appear in newborns. As Xconomy’s Angela Shah reported in May 2015, the company received clearance from the FDA to market the device to healthcare providers in neonatal intensive care units, especially targeting the 500,000 or so premature babies born each year, who are more vulnerable.
Roberts held executive roles at medical device company Kinetic Concepts, Boehringer Mannheim Corp., and Roche Diagnostics before coming to Invictus.
Invictus was founded by University of Texas at San Antonio engineering students Daniel Mendez, Israel Cruz, and Nick Flores in 2009. The Texas Technology Development Center is an investor.
Kane also sits on the boards of Kalamazoo, MI-based Armune Bioscience, a cancer diagnostic company, and Aerocrine AB, a Swedish medtech business focused on inflammation.
