Manny Villafaña and Chris Velis Fireside Chat

Founder and CEO, Medical 21, Inc.

I have dedicated the past 50 years of my career to founding medical device companies and developing medical technology that creates valuable, lasting impact for millions of people around the world.

I have built my career on the notion that if you don’t take risks, nothing will happen. I was told it was impossible to create a pacemaker that lasted 10 years, so, instead, I developed one that lasted 30–40 years. The devices I developed during my career helped advance medical technology and have become the gold standard of cardiac medical devices. I’ve reshaped the industry through my groundbreaking work in pacemakers, defibrillators, and artificial heart valves, but my latest venture has the potential to completely revolutionize cardiac bypass surgery.

I am now the Founder and Chairman of Medical 21 — a company developing an artificial artery for cardiac bypass surgeries. A graft like ours can eliminate the need for vessel harvesting, thereby reducing complications, pain, costs, and time in surgery.

Entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Christopher Velis has pioneered some of the most innovative medical technologies brought to market in the last decades. As Founder and Executive Chairman, Chris forecasts imminent global health and medical challenges, uncovers technologies at leading research institutions and assembles teams of industry experts to solve these global problems. Chris not only offers investments guidance and critical research and industry connections, but also helps guide each portfolio company along the fund’s proven, repeatable process that reduces new venture risk and enhances returns.

Auris Health, recognized by CNBC as one of the 50 most disruptive companies in the world, is one of a number of ventures founded, grown or brought to exit by Chris. Companies Chris has worked on have set the industry gold standard for motion preservation, regeneration of cartilage and soft tissue through the use of novel peptides, tissue regeneration using DNA pairs, and stem cell and PRP technologies for use in regenerative medicine. Throughout his 27-year career, Chris has also represented more than 150 medical device companies in a variety of business transactions including licensing agreements, joint ventures and M&A.