Palliare

Scott has more than 40 years of healthcare experience in surgical devices and is currently serving as Board Chair for Palliare Ltd. He also serves on the Board of Integrum, TubeWriter and Origami.

Scott’s previous leadership roles include President and CEO of Invuity, Executive Director of Conventus Orthopaedics, President and CEO of OmniGuide Surgical, President of Covidien’s Surgical Device Group, President of Smith & Nephew Orthopaedic Reconstruction, General Manager and Senior Vice President of U.S. and European Sales for Smith & Nephew Trauma, and Global Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Ioptex Research. He has also served on three public company boards: Invuity, MAKO Surgical and Tengion.

Giovanni Di Napoli is President of the Gastrointestinal Operating Unit within the Medical Surgical Portfolio at Medtronic. Prior to joining Medtronic, Gio held leadership positions in various divisions at Johnson & Johnson and Ethicon. During his 10 years with Medtronic, Gio has established strong relationships with Endoscopists throughout the world, identifying unmet clinical needs and gathering input on new products, which serves to accelerate business growth and innovation.

Gio recently received the prestigious Crystal Award from the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, in recognition of his and his team’s contributions and commitment to new technologies that improve patient care and reach.

Gio earned a B.S. in Business Administration from University La Sapienza in Rome, Italy and an MBA from Luigi Bocconi Business School in Milan, Italy.

John O’Shaughnessy is one of the most experienced medical device leaders in Ireland. He has over 30 years’ experience in the medical device industry in top-level general management, senior operations and commercial management positions. He spent the first 16 years of his career with C.R. Bard Inc. (NYSE:BCR) and thereafter become a serial entrepreneur.

John founded two Irish MedTech companies, Mednova Limited and Neuravi Limited and has invested in multiple medical device and other companies at various stages of their development. He is Chairman of several companies and is an advisor to a major multi-national company, advising on their strategy on MedTech investing, acquisitions, and management.

John received the 2012 Outstanding Contribution to MedTech Award from the Irish MedTech Association, IDA Ireland, and Enterprise Ireland.

John has 30 years’ experience in the medical device industry and is CEO of the Palliare group of companies. John previously worked at Medtronic following their 2017 acquisition of GI Diagnostic company Crospon, which he founded in 2006.

John co-founded Caradyne, an Irish respiratory medical device company, which was acquired by Respironics, Inc. in 2004. Over the past 35 years, John has held R&D management positions in Nellcor Puritan Bennett and engineering positions in Digital Equipment, Inc. and Dataproducts, Inc.

John is a named author on 18 U.S. Patents.

John is Chairman of the External Advisory Board of BioInnovate Ireland at NUI Galway. He is a past Chairman of the Board of the Irish Medical Devices Association and is a Past President of Engineers Ireland. In 2016, John was awarded a Doctor of Engineering (honoris causa) by NUI Galway for his contribution to the Irish medical device industry and received the 2016 Outstanding Contribution to MedTech Award from the Irish MedTech Association, IDA Ireland, and Enterprise Ireland.

John holds Bachelor and Master’s Degrees in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Electronics Engineering, all from University College Dublin, and an MSc in Clinical Research from NUI Galway.

Caroline Sherlock has over 20 years’ experience in the medical device industry and is currently Managing Director of Palliare’s Irish facility.

Caroline has extensive start-up experience. She co-founded Caradyne, an Irish respiratory medical device company, and Crospon, a GI Diagnostic Company, where she served as Director of Operations and Quality.

Caroline has extensive experience in medical device manufacturing operations, design and implementation of FDA QSR and ISO13485 compliant quality systems, and financial management. She has held quality management roles with companies such as Respironics and Medtronic.

Caroline holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from NUI Galway and a Graduate Diploma in Business Studies from University of Limerick.

Samantha Bonano is an accomplished Chief Executive Officer with track record of building enterprise value in public, private equity, and family-owned medical device businesses.

Samantha served as President and CEO of Buffalo Filter (2010-2019), a world leader in surgical smoke evacuation systems, prior to its acquisition by Filtration Group in 2019.

Samantha is an inventor/contributor to 25 issued and pending patents. She specializes in disruptive and sustaining innovation, as well as corporate strategic development.

Samantha earned a B.S. in Business Administration from State University of New York at Buffalo (UB) and a Certificate of Management Excellence from Harvard Business School Executive Education.

Jennifer is a partner at European venture capital firm Seroba Life Sciences. She is based in the Dublin office and is involved in medtech and biotech deal origination and investments.

After graduating from the University College of Dublin with an honours degree in Pharmacology, Jennifer entered a master’s degree program in Biotechnology and Business. Having placed first in her master’s in 2011, Jennifer then joined Seroba Life Sciences as an investment analyst.

In 2019, Jennifer completed her Diploma in Company Direction, accredited by the Institute of Directors (UK). She represents Seroba on the board of Endotronix, Palliare and Shorla Oncology (observer). Previous directorships include Biosensia before its merger with Kypha Diagnostics (2018), and she served as observer on the Atlantic Therapeutics board and managed the fund’s investment in Labcyte before its acquisition by Beckman Coulter (2019).

In 2015, Jennifer was recognized as one of Ireland’s ‘Top 30 Under 30’, shaping the future of business in the country. In 2019, she joined the Advisory Board for the European Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association and established the Level20 Ireland Chapter, an international organization promoting gender diversity in private equity. She was subsequently appointed to the Board of Level20 (UK) in 2022.

Dr. Silvana Perretta is a foregut surgeon endoscopist with a lifelong dedication to gastrointestinal surgery and surgical education. Her surgical training has been split between Italy and the United States. In 2006, she joined Professor Jacques Marescaux and the IRCAD team in Strasbourg. Today she holds the rank of Professor of Surgery at the University of Strasbourg in France and Chief of Foregut and Advanced Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Division. She also serves as Director of IHU education and of the Surgical Endoscopy fellowship program since 2014.

Since 2011, Dr. Perretta has led the Business Engineering and Surgical Technologies education program (“B.E.S.T”), an innovation program that targets engineers, medical students, and young professionals wanting to learn how to drive innovation in medicine, which now counts overs 300 graduates.

Dr. Perretta advocates for surgeons performing interventional endoscopy in Europe and has been actively developing endoscopic platforms and flexible robotics. She has been a pioneer in the development of Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES), hybrid surgical endoscopy procedures, image guided therapies, endoscopic simulators and MOOC-oriented medical education worldwide. She and her team were the first to perform novel surgical endoscopic procedures such as NOTES cholecystectomy, POEM for the treatment of achalasia and endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty for the treatment of morbid obesity in France.

Dr. Perretta’s fields of interest are upper gastrointestinal surgery, gastrointestinal physiology, bariatric surgery, interventional endoscopy, surgical education and innovation. She has authored over 113 peer-reviewed publications, has given hundreds of lectures in MIS, surgical innovation, and education, and she holds 9 patents

Ronan Cahill was appointed Professor of Surgery at University College Dublin (UCD) and the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital (MMUH) in June 2014 before taking over leadership of the Section and Subject of Surgery in UCD in 2017. In 2019, he was appointed Director of the Centre for Precision Surgery, UCD and the Digital Surgery Unit, MMUH. He is also clinical lead for the Irish component of the EU Horizon 2020 PORSAV Collaboration to improve operating room safety regarding aerosols and surgical teams.

Ronan graduated MB, BAO, BCh (Hons) from University College Dublin in 1997 and then completed his basic and specialist surgical training in Ireland, gaining both MD by thesis (Health Research Board Clinical Research Fellow) and FRCS by examination. Thereafter, he was a clinical fellow at the IRCAD/EITS Institute in Strasbourg, France from 2007 to 2008 before moving to the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals as senior fellow and then consultant and senior clinical researcher from 2008 to 2010. Ronan returned to Ireland in 2010 as consultant general surgeon at Beaumont Hospital before moving to the Mater and UCD.

Ronan is a recipient of both the Bennett and Millen Medals and was the ASGBI Robert Smith Lecturer in 2014. He has authored over 200 peer reviewed publications, five book chapters and four National Guidelines. He is an editorial board member of five indexed surgical journals, including Colorectal Disease and the European Journal of Surgical Oncology and is a member of the SAGES Research Committee (SAGES Career Development Award recipient 2009).

Ronan has a major academic interest in Surgical Innovation and New Technologies, as well as basic science, clinical, and device development research partnerships. Most recently he is co-awardee of a major Disruptive Innovation and Technologies Fund (DTIF) award by the Irish Government for a project entitled “The Future of Colorectal Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment”, a consortium including UCD, RCSI, IBM Research and Dechiphex using artificial intelligence for decision support in surgery and pathology

Dr. Bernard Dallemagne is a consultant digestive, upper gastrointestinal surgeon at the NHC University Hospital and the Institute of Image Guided Surgery (IHU) in Strasbourg, is Scientific co-Director and Fellowship Program Director at the IRCAD Institute, and is Associate Editor of WebSurg.

Dr. Dallemagne is an award-winning pioneer in minimally invasive surgery and the first to report the laparoscopic approach to Nissen fundoplication and esophagectomy in the early 1990s. In 1996, he received the Excel Award from the Society of Laparoscopic and Endoscopic Surgeons, and in 2019, he received the George Berci Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES).

Dr. Dallemagne’s clinical, research, and educational activities are focused on minimally invasive treatments of a variety of esophageal and gastrointestinal disorders, particularly utilizing laparoscopy and interventional flexible endoscopy. He has published over 160 peer reviewed papers, several book chapters, and 15 patents.

JDr. Dean Mikami is Chief of Surgery and Associate Chair for Clinical Affairs for the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. He specializes in minimally invasive surgery of the gastrointestinal tract, hernia repair, bariatric surgery, and advanced endolumenal therapies. He is one of the pioneers in endolumenal bariatric surgery and has trained many surgeons throughout the world.

Dr. Mikami has over 100 publications, abstracts, and book chapters and is one of the editors of “Evidence-Based Minimally Invasive Surgery.” He has been an invited lecturer numerous times locally, nationally, and internationally and has been involved in multiple surgical research projects. He is an active member of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES), and the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS). He is currently a Board Member for SAGES and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Bariatric Surgery Practice and Patient Care.

Dr. Pat Sylla graduated from Cornell Weill Medical College and completed her surgical residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, followed by a colorectal fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC. She completed a second fellowship in Minimally Invasive Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she practiced for 7 years.

Dr. Sylla currently works at Mount Sinai Hospital. Her clinical practice focuses on minimally invasive treatment of IBD, diverticular disease and colorectal cancer. She is currently the lead PI for a Phase II multicenter North American trial on Transanal Total Mesorectal Excision (taTME). She served as program co-chair of the SAGES 2019 meeting and is chair of the SAGES Colorectal Committee and of the ASCRS New Technology Committee.

Dr. Sylla is an innovator with particular interest in minimally invasive approaches to rectal diseases. While still a clinical fellow, in 2007, she initiated a transanal NOTES project in a swine model, which transitioned to a cadaveric model and led to the first case in a human in 2009.