World Heart Corporation (WorldHeart) has announced the appointment of John Alexander Martin as its new president and chief executive officer. Martin also replaced Jal S. Jassawalla on the company’ board of directors. Prior to WorldHeart, Martin worked at Edwards Lifesciences as president of the North American region and corporate vice president since 2004. Martin holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Kentucky at Lexington.
Previously, Martin was with Cordis Corporation, a Johnson and Johnson (J&J) company, where he worked as senior vice president of international and prior to that, vice president of sales and marketing. At Cordis, Martin was responsible for all US coronary therapeutic and diagnostic device sales.
Prior to Cordis, Martin served in sales, marketing and business development management positions at several organizations, including C.R. Bards’ USCI division, Cambridge Heart and IMED Corporation. He also worked as director of the Emergency Medical Services at The Medical Center at Bowling Green.
Jal S. Jassawalla, WorldHeart’s president and chief executive officer since 2004 and co-founder of the original Novacor Medical Corporation, commented that, “I join WorldHeart’s Board of Directors and employees in welcoming Alex to WorldHeart and the exciting and promising field of circulatory assist therapy.” Jassawalla will continue in a senior role as executive vice president and chief technology officer. Jassawalla will responsible for research & development, product strategy, and clinical and regulatory affairs.
“We are pleased to have Alex Martin join WorldHeart,” said Michael Estes, chair of WorldHeart’s board of directors. “Alex’s extensive background in medical technologies and long-standing relationships within the cardiovascular community will be particularly valuable as WorldHeart brings its Levacor technology into the clinical arena and continues to advance its unique ‘mag-lev’ technology platform. The Board of Directors is also very pleased that Jal Jassawalla will continue in his key role as Executive Vice President of WorldHeart.”
WorldHeart is a US-based company headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah with additional facilities in Oakland, California, US and Herkenbosch, The Netherlands.