MARTINEZ, Calif. – On September 8th, BioMedSA honored Robert Ward, President and CEO of ExThera Medical, with the 2021-2022 BioMedSA Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience, for his numerous achievements in the medical device industry, including the development of the Seraph^® 100 Microbind^® Affinity Blood Filter, a groundbreaking device that has been used in the treatment of critically ill COVID-19 patients. The ceremony was held in the new Tech Center in Port San Antonio TX. It was attended by more than 400 people, including clinicians and administrators and the mayor of San Antonio TX, a major hub of MedTech and military and civilian medicine.

The BioMedSA Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience celebrates local and national innovators in the healthcare and bioscience field, including patient care, education, research and development, leadership, public policy and medical technology. The list of past winners is a who’s who of the field.

“We are happy that the Seraph 100 is making a positive impact during the COVID-19 pandemic under our FDA Emergency Use Authorization,” said ExThera Medical CEO Robert Ward. “It is an incredible honor to be recognized by one’s peers and by a highly regarded organization such as BioMedSA.”

Prior to ExThera Medical, Robert Ward led several companies whose innovations have benefitted patients, including as President/CEO and founder of the Polymer Technology Group (PTG), President of the Biomaterials Division at Thoratec and Director of Research at Avco Medical Products. He has numerous technical publications and patents and has received multiple awards and recognitions.

“We are proud to honor Robert Ward for his lifetime of achievements in the MedTech industry,” noted BioMedSA President Heather Hanson. “His entire career of innovation, invention and commercialization of technologies has made an indelible impact on patients around the world, most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Seraph 100 has been granted Emergency Use Authorization by the Food and Drug Administration to treat COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU with confirmed or imminent respiratory failure, and has been used on more than 1,000 US and EU patients since April 2020. A multicenter randomized controlled trial studying blood purification for the treatment of pathogen-associated shock during sepsis (PURIFY-RCT) began enrollment earlier this year. Seraph attained a CE Mark in the EU countries where it has been used successfully to treat COVID-19 and a variety of other bloodstream infections.

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About ExThera Medical Corporation
ExThera Medical Corporation develops and commercializes extracorporeal blood filtration devices, including the Seraph^® 100 Microbind^® Affinity Blood Filter (Seraph 100) for removing a broad range of pathogens from the bloodstream of patients. Seraph 100 can be used in hospitals, clinics, on battlefields and in other austere environments to address nosocomial and community-acquired infections as well as those caused by battlefield wounds, pandemics, and biological warfare agents. ExThera Medical’s extracorporeal products have demonstrated life-saving capabilities in a wide range of critically ill patients suffering from sepsis, COVID-19, and many other severe bloodstream infections. With a growing body of outcome and health economic evidence from independent clinical studies, success in the DARPA Dialysis-Like Therapeutics program, and from successful clinical use in the U.S., the EU, and the Middle East, the company is well positioned to serve healthcare professionals and patients alike. 

The Seraph 100 Microbind Affinity Blood Filter (Seraph 100) attained CE Mark in 2019 and is commercially available in the EU for the treatment of blood stream infections. The Seraph 100 device has neither been cleared nor approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for any indication. The Seraph 100 has been authorized by FDA under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to treat patients with COVID-19 infection. The Seraph 100 is authorized only for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of the emergency use of the Seraph 100 device under section 564(b)(1) of the Act, 21 U.S.C. § 360bbb-3(b)(1), unless the authorization is terminated or revoked sooner.

For more information, visit the company’s website at http://www.extheramedical.com/.

About Seraph 100 and the ONCObind Procedure
As a patient’s blood flows through the Seraph^® 100 Microbind^® Affinity Filter (Seraph 100), it passes through a bed of small beads with receptors that mimic the receptors on human cells that pathogens target when they invade the body. Many harmful substances are quickly captured and adsorbed onto the surface of the beads and are thereby subtracted from the bloodstream. Seraph 100 adds nothing to the bloodstream. It targets the pathogens that cause the infection, while it also binds and removes harmful substances generated by the pathogen and by the body’s response to the infection. Seraph’s proprietary adsorption media (the beads) constitute a flexible platform that uses immobilized (chemically bonded) heparin for its well-established blood compatibility and its unique ability to bind circulating tumor cells, bacteria, viruses, fungi, and important sepsis mediators reported to contribute to organ failure during sepsis.

ExThera Medical is currently developing the ONCObind Procedure Hemoperfusion Filter (ONCObind) to support cancer treatment. ONCObind is part of the same platform technology as Seraph 100.

For more news stories on Seraph 100 and ONCObind, click here.

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