Gecko Biomedical Appoints Youssef Biadillah As Chief Development Officer. Maria Pereira Transitions To Chief Innovation Officer

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gecko Biomedical (“Gecko”), a medical device company developing innovative polymers to support tissue reconstruction, has appointed Youssef Biadillah as Chief Development Officer. In addition, Maria Pereira transitioned to Chief Innovation Officer.

In the past years, Gecko has successfully brought its proprietary technology platform from lab-scale to full-scale production and into its first clinical indication. The company’s platform is based on a proprietary polymer family with unique properties including superior biocompatibility, tunable bioresorbability, and adjustable tissue adherence. Furthermore, the polymer hydrophobicity, high viscosity and controlled “on demand” curing enable a unique and controlled delivery to targeted tissues or the creation of scaffolds. Upon curing, an elastic bioresorbable material is formed. The versatility of the mentioned above properties allows customization for various applications, tissue types, and clinical indications.

Using its scalable and innovative polymer platform, the company is now targeting new functionalities and tissue types to expand into new clinical indications.

Christophe Bancel, Gecko’s CEO, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Youssef. He has a track record in successfully developing highly complex class III medical devices. Gecko is now evolving towards an open innovative platform where Maria will be leading our ‘Innovation Hub’ while Youssef will drive Gecko’s ‘Development Factory’. By combining in a coordinated manner our innovation and development efforts, we plan to further streamline our activities towards the development of multiple innovative products to address various unmet clinical needs.”

Youssef Biadillah is a graduate of McGill University’s engineering school in Montreal, Canada. He has 13 years of experience at various product development functions. He was part of the core R&D teams at Baylis Medical in Toronto, Canada (now Kimberly-Clark) and Sadra Medical in Silicon Valley, USA (now Boston Scientific). He then joined Symetis in Geneva area, Switzerland where he led the development of the Acurate neo transcatheter system and brought it from a first sketch in 2010 to CE mark in 2014. The product transformed the company within one year into the EU leader in its field which led to the acquisition of the company by Boston Scientific.

Youssef is also the co-inventor and co-founder of Anchor Orthopedics, a Canadian company that commercializes disc herniation stabilization products, and AboGen, a US company that commercializes saliva based research and diagnostic tools.

Maria Pereira joined Gecko at its inception. She holds a MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences and a PhD in Bioengineering systems under the scope of the MIT-Portugal program, where she focused on the development of biomaterial-based solutions for unmet medical needs in the fields of tissue adhesion and drug delivery. Maria managed several multi-center collaborations leading to multiple high impact publications in journals such as Science Translational Medicine and Advanced Materials. The work developed during her PhD became Gecko’s core technology platform. She is a co-inventor of the technology and holds several patents within the field. In 2014, she integrated MIT’s Technology Review Magazine list of Innovators Under 35 Award and in 2015, she was recognized by Forbes Magazine as part of the 30 under 30 list in Healthcare and by TIME Magazine as a Next Generation Leader.

About Gecko

Gecko Biomedical is a privately owned medical device company based in Paris, France that is dedicated to the rapid development and commercialization of a unique biopolymer platform to address various unmet clinical needs.

The company’s platform is based on a proprietary polymer family with unique properties including superior biocompatibility, tunable bioresorbability, and adjustable tissue adherence. Furthermore, the polymer hydrophobicity, high viscosity and controlled “on demand” curing enable a unique and controlled delivery to targeted tissues or the creation of scaffolds.

Gecko’s first product, SETALUMTM Sealant, is an innovative polymer for tissue reconstruction, targeting vascular reconstruction as an initial indication. Its structure is tunable, allowing customization for various applications and tissue types. The polymer is part of a biopolymer platform family that is fully industrialized and highly versatile, with potential novel applications in other fields of tissue reconstruction such as guided tissue repair, and the field of localized drug delivery.

The Company’s technology is based on world-class research and intellectual property from the laboratories of Pr Robert Langer (MIT) and Pr Jeff Karp (Brigham and Women’s Hospital), who co-founded the company in 2013, alongside Christophe Bancel and Bernard Gilly from the iBionext Network. For more information, please visit: www.geckobiomedical.com.

Gecko Biomedical
Brice Epry: +33 1 76 21 72 28
info@geckobiomedical.com
Twitter: @geckobiomedical

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