XTENT appoints Smith, Taylor to its board

XTENT, a drug-eluting stent manufacturer, has appointed Christopher M. Smith and Arthur T. Taylor to its board of directors.

Smith is currently president of Cochlear Americas, a developer of implantable hearing devices, according to the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company. From October 2003 to August 2004, he was a consultant for Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm. From 2000 to 2003, Smith served as group president for Gyrus Group and as president and CEO-director of Gyrus Medical, a medical device company.

Taylor served as a senior executive at Kyphon Products, Spinal & Biologics Business at Medtronic from November 2007 to May of this year, XTENT said. Prior to that, he was chief operating officer of Kyphon, a medical device company, from 2006 until its acquisition by Medtronic in November 2007, having served as chief financial officer of Kyphon from 2004 to 2006.

"Both are medical device industry veterans whose experience and insight will be invaluable as we move toward commercialization of the Custom NX drug-eluting stent system,” said Gregory D. Casciaro, XTENT's president and CEO.

Robert Bellas of Morgenthaler Ventures, a founding venture capital investor in XTENT and a board member since 2002, will leave his board position this month as the new members assume their duties.

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