Luis F. Angel, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Angel is BiO2 Medical’s Chief Medical Officer and will be responsible for implementing the scientific agenda for the company. Dr. Angel is an Associate Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Director of Lung Transplantation, and Director of Interventional Pulmonary Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

During Dr. Angel’s fellowship in interventional pulmonology at Harvard Medical School, he developed a stent delivery device that was eventually commercialized by Merit Medical and is currently sold in the United States and Europe as the Aero Direct Visualization Delivery System. Dr. Angel then developed the Angel™ Catheter with the goal of preventing PEs in critically ill patients.

Christopher E. Banas
Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board
BiO2 Medical’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Christopher E. Banas, is a medical device industry veteran with extensive, directly applicable leadership experience in cardiovascular company startup, financing, management, R&D, scale-up, regulatory approval, and commercialization.

Banas has held various engineering and executive management positions at prominent companies such as: StorageTek, W.L. Gore & Associates, Guidant/ACS, IMPRA/C.R. Bard and Volcano Corporation. He began his career in 1980 where he was a polymer chemist at the Borg Warner Chemicals, Roy C. Ingersoll Research Center in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Banas co-founded four medical device companies, Advanced Bio Prosthetic Surfaces, Ltd. (ABPS), CardioSpectra, Inc., Aeon BioScience Inc., and BiO2 Medical, Inc., all in the cardiovascular space. ABPS and CardioSpectra successfully developed their respective products, demonstrated feasibility, and were sold to major, US based medical device companies. Aeon BioScience is currently developing an elastin-based biomaterial to be used either as a coating for medical devices to improve their biological properties, or as a stand-alone material, such as a small diameter vascular graft to be used as a bypass graft.

CardioSpectra, developed an Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging catheter, console, and interface device for the high resolution imaging of coronary and peripheral arteries. Banas and his team raised the capital, developed the products, and conducted all relevant in-vitro, and in-vivo testing to gain a CE Mark. CardioSpectra was then sold to Volcano Corporation, a publically held medical device company, where Banas assumed the role of President and General Manager for their new OCT division.

Prior to CardioSpectra, Banas co-founded Advanced Bio Prosthetic Surfaces, Ltd. (ABPS) with Dr. Julio Palmaz, the inventor of the balloon expandable Palmaz® stent. Under Banas’ leadership as President and CEO, he raised the capital and developed an entirely new method for making Nitinol implantable cardiovascular devices utilizing physical vapor deposition. Banas and his team developed the technology, demonstrated feasibility through numerous bench and animal testing, conducted a First in Man (FIM) human clinical trial, and then sold the exclusive license to practice the technology to Cordis, a Johnson and Johnson company.

Knowledge that Banas gained through his experience at ABPS, CardioSpectra, Volcano, and the technology transfer to Cordis is directly applicable to the goals of BiO2 Medical and will substantially add to the success of the program.

Banas holds 39 issued US patents and currently has 42 published US applications in the fields of cardiovascular medicine, specifically, vascular surgery, interventional cardiology, nanotechnology and physical vapor deposition of NITINOL. Intellectual property portfolios developed by Banas have, in part, resulted in deals valued in excess of $260 million, not including the value of future royalty income.
Additionally, Banas has extensive experience in life-science investing. Banas is a managing partner for Incyte Venture’s San Antonio based Targeted Technology Fund and is an advisor for the Dallas-based Scientific Health Development Fund.

Banas sits on a number of corporate boards, including Resonetics, a New Hampshire based excimer laser company supporting the medical device industry, where he is Chairman of the Board, and Palmaz Scientific, a medical device company specializing in interventional cardiology products.

Paul Castella, PhD, MBA
Chief Financial Officer
Paul Castella, PhD, MBA, BiO2 Medical’s Chief Financial Officer, earned his PhD in cell biology and genetics from Cornell University Medical College in NYC and his MBA from the University of Texas in San Antonio. Dr. Castella specializes in financing and licensing strategies for technology start-ups and has significant experience in the evaluation, financing, licensing, formation and operation of biotechnology and medical technology companies.

Dr. Castella began his career as a biotechnology consultant in Palo Alto, CA, focusing on opportunity forecasts for new oncology therapies and strategic planning for new markets for clients such as Amgen, Aventis, and Genentech. Dr. Castella co-founded his first company, Xenotope Diagnostics, in 2001 to develop the first FDA approved rapid diagnostic test for Trichomonas, the world’s most prevalent non-viral STD. The rapid test technology was licensed to Genzyme Diagnostics in 2003 for manufacture and worldwide sales.

In 2005, Dr. Castella and Mr. Banas co-founded CardioSpectra, a cardiovascular optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging company, which was sold to Volcano Corporation in 2007. Dr. Castella and Mr. Banas subsequently co-founded a number of life-science businesses: Aeon BioScience to develop recombinant elastin-based polymer coatings for medical devices; BiO2 Medical to develop a catheter-based IVC filter for PE prophylaxis; and the life-science venture capital firm Incyte Venture Partners. Dr. Castella also co-founded Viroxis Corporation, a botanical drug company in late-stage development of a topical antiviral.

Dr. Castella, is a member of the review committee for the South Texas Regional Center of Innovation and Commercialization, helping to evaluate and recommend technology business proposals for the State of Texas Emerging Technology Fund (ETF). Paul is an advisory board member for the Chromosome 18 Registry, Chairman of the advisory board for UTSA’s Center for Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship (CITE) and a board member of StarTech (formerly known as the San Antonio Technology Accelerator Initiative, SATAI) and BioMed SA.