Rivanna Medical appoints John A. Williams as president and CEO

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rivanna Medical, a commercial-stage medical device company that has developed a platform of technologies based on medical ultrasound, announced today that it has appointed John A. Williams as President and CEO. He replaces Will Mauldin, Ph.D., a co-founder of RIVANNA who remains as Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of the company.

Mr. Williams is a proven leader with distinguished success in building and selling publicly and privately held healthcare companies. He is known as a strong strategic and analytical thinker with a track record of developing new technologies to accelerate growth. His turnaround experience coupled with his ability to create and execute a long-term vision has consistently enhanced shareholder value. John has successfully led and exited a public company and has raised in excess of $80 million for the companies he has led.

“RIVANNA’s co-founders, Dr. Will Mauldin and Dr. Kevin Owen, have done a phenomenal job of building the company and developing the Accuro™ platform with relatively minimal funding to date,” said Mr. Williams. “There are numerous clinical applications for Accuro, which we believe is a disruptive, game-changing device platform technology. Our initial commercial application of the platform, which is based on automated 3D navigation, is designed for guiding clinicians to a first-attempt success in administering spinal anesthesia. The Accuro™ platform has an addressable $1.1 billion U.S. market today. Given the significant unmet clinical need for automated image guidance in general, and the spinal anesthesia market in particular, we look forward to soon being able to fast-forward the U.S. commercialization of Accuro™, especially with a strategic partner.”

“We are extremely pleased to welcome John Williams to RIVANNA,” said Dr. Mauldin. “Certainly, his outstanding track record of raising funds for emerging companies bodes well for RIVANNA, as we step-up our efforts to commercialize the first FDA-cleared product from the Accuro™ platform—designed to facilitate spinal anesthesia guidance with real-time 3D navigation of the lumbar spine.”

Spinal anesthesia often fails due to reliance on “blind” needle guidance. There are 20+ million neuraxial anesthesia-related (epidurals and spinals) procedures per year in the US; 20% to 80% of all needle placement attempts fail, depending on operator skill, age, and patient obesity; obese and elderly are growing demographics.

About Rivanna Medical

Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, RIVANNA is a privately held medical technology company that is commercializing its initial product, Accuro™, a proprietary and versatile imaging product that is FDA 510(k)-cleared for spinal anesthesia guidance and a variety of additional imaging applications, such as diagnostic imaging of the cardiac and abdominal anatomies.

NOTE: Rivanna Medical’s Accuro™ product is the world’s first ultrasound system designed specifically for spinal anesthesia guidance.