Outside of the Chair, ExThera Medical Board Composed Entirely of Outside Experts
Martinez, Calif. – March 23, 2021 – Professor Lakhmir Chawla, MD, has joined the board of directors of ExThera Medical Corporation, a privately held medical technology company whose Seraph 100 Microbind Affinity Blood Filter is authorized in the United States to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients. Dr. Chawla also serves as the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board at the company.
Dr. Chawla is an internationally renowned expert in the field of acute kidney injury (AKI), vasopressors, and septic shock. He remains an active investigator in the fields of AKI biomarkers, AKI therapeutics and Acute Kidney Disease. He served as an advisor on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) $150 million Dialysis-Like Therapy Program that sought to foster emerging, pathogen agnostic blood cleansing countermeasures to respond to the outbreak of sepsis-causing infectious diseases. This program evaluated ExThera’s Seraph technology which is in active use across the United States to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients.
“Dr. Chawla is the preeminent authority on acute kidney injury, sepsis, and the possibilities that extracorporeal filters hold for patients and physicians around the world,” said ExThera Medical Chairman and CEO Robert Ward. “ExThera has already benefited greatly from Dr. Chawla’s expertise. Our efforts to provide a safe and effective device to treat COVID-19 and other emerging diseases can only be elevated by Dr. Chawla’s position on our Board of Directors.”
Dr. Chawla is the author of over 150 peer-reviewed publications and a recipient of the International Vicenza Award for Critical Care Nephrology; an award that recognizes individuals who have made seminal clinical research advancements that have significantly improved the care of critically ill patients with AKI and have been adopted worldwide.
“Innovation in critical care is indispensable in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the many other challenges posed by emerging infectious diseases,” said Dr. Chawla. “I have been delighted to work with Exthera Medical in developing smart solutions for critically ill patients and look forward to deepening our relationship and continuing to make progress toward saving lives.”
Previously, Dr. Chawla was a Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University (GWU), where he had dual appointments in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine and in the Department of Medicine, Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension. Dr. Chawla was previously the Chief of the Division of Intensive Care Medicine at the Washington D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
During his tenure at GWU, Dr. Chawla was the designer and lead investigator of a pilot study called the ATHOS (Angiotensin II for the Treatment of High Output Shock) trial. Data from the ATHOS trial was published in the medical journal Critical Care during 2014. In 2015, Dr. Chawla moved from GWU to La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company (LJPC) where he joined as Chief Medical Officer. At LJPC, Dr. Chawla oversaw the development and conduct of the Phase 3 registration ATHOS-3 trial. The data from the ATHOS-3 Trial helped support the FDA approval of GIAPREZA (angiotensin II) which is indicated for the treatment of hypotension due to the treatment of septic or other distributive shock. GIAPREZA was approved on December 21, 2017 and EMA approval in August 2019. Thereafter, Dr. Chawla oversaw the Medical Affairs launch and commercialization of GIAPREZA.
About ExThera Medical Corporation
ExThera Medical Corporation develops and commercializes extracorporeal blood filtration devices, including the Seraph® 100 Microbind® Affinity Blood Filter for removing a broad range of harmful substances from the bloodstream of patients. Seraph can be used in hospitals, clinics, or field hospitals to address infections caused by battlefield wounds or pandemics. ExThera Medical’s extracorporeal products have demonstrated life-saving capabilities in a wide range of critically ill patients suffering from severe infections. With a growing body of outcome and health economic evidence from independent clinical studies, participation in the DARPA Dialysis-Like Therapeutics program, and from successful clinical use in the US and EU, the company is well positioned to serve healthcare professionals and patients alike. The Seraph 100 is CE marked and commercially available in the EU, and has FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for treatment of COVID-19 in the USA.
About Seraph 100
As a patient’s blood flows through the Seraph 100 filter, it passes over beads with receptors that mimic the receptors on human cells that pathogens target when they invade the body. Harmful substances quickly captured and adsorbed onto the surface of the beads and are thereby removed from the bloodstream. Seraph 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 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 bacteria, viruses, fungi, and important sepsis mediators reported to contribute to organ failure during sepsis. The ‘antithrombogenic’ heparin media can be combined with other ExThera-proprietary media to tailor the capability of future Seraph products for the treatment of specific diseases, or to further broaden Seraph’s capability.
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