Avinger Appoints Jaafer Golzar, MD, FACC, FSCAI, as Chief Medical Officer
Practicing Interventional Cardiologist is a Key Opinion Leader in the Treatment of Peripheral Artery Disease
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., July 10, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Avinger, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGR), a leading developer of innovative treatments for peripheral artery disease (PAD), today announced the appointment, effective immediately, of Jaafer Golzar, MD, as the Company’s Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Golzar provides Avinger with an extensive and impressive history of clinical leadership within the endovascular field.
Dr. Golzar is a practicing interventional cardiologist with Advocate Medical Group in Chicago. He is the Director of Limb Salvage and Endovascular Intervention at Advocate Trinity Hospital. Dr. Golzar is also a leading educator on interventional techniques and technologies and is the founder and previous director of the Chicago Endovascular Conference (CVC), an international-scale annual conference designed to address the educational needs of physicians and other health care professionals treating patients with peripheral arterial and venous diseases. Prior to joining Avinger, Dr. Golzar was also Medical Director – Interventional Vascular for BTG International. He has participated in multiple clinical research trials, including studies of PAD treatment with atherectomy, drug-eluting balloons and stents and has authored numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals. As a recognized leader in the endovascular community, Dr. Golzar has received multiple accolades including the prestigious Pioneers in Performance - North America Award in 2014. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions. Dr. Golzar will maintain a part-time clinical practice while he serves as Avinger’s Chief Medical Officer.
“We are extremely pleased that Dr. Golzar has joined our executive leadership team and are confident he will provide valuable clinical and strategic perspective to our company,” said Jeff Soinski, president and CEO of Avinger. “His feedback on earlier versions of Avinger’s Lumivascular technology led to many of the enhancements designed into our recently-launched next-generation Pantheris, and we anticipate his clinical acumen will contribute substantially to Avinger’s future product development and clinical study initiatives. Furthermore, Dr. Golzar’s relationships and respect within the PAD treatment community and among potential strategic partners will meaningfully and positively impact the adoption of Lumivascular and the value of our Company.”
Jaafer Golzar, MD, commented, “Having worked with all the major tools used to treat peripheral disease, there is no technology I’m more excited about than Avinger’s Lumivascular platform. I am particularly impressed with the recent advances in the next-generation Pantheris, and I look forward to spreading the word about its benefits with my fellow interventionists, as well as working with the Avinger team to develop additional products that leverage the unique benefits of real-time intravascular visualization provided by the Lumivascular platform. Being a part of such groundbreaking technologies that improve safety and outcomes for patients is what continues to drive my passion for the cardiac and endovascular medical field.”
About Avinger, Inc.
Avinger is a commercial-stage medical device company that designs and develops the first-ever image-guided, catheter-based system that diagnoses and treats patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). Avinger is dedicated to radically changing the way vascular disease is treated through its Lumivascular platform, which currently consists of the Lightbox imaging console, the Ocelot family of chronic total occlusion (CTO) catheters, and the Pantheris® family of atherectomy devices. Avinger is based in Redwood City, CA. For more information, please visit
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding Dr. Golzar’s future professional activities and contributions to Avinger’s business, anticipated adoption of Lumivascular technology, product development and clinical study initiatives and growth of Avinger’s business. Such statements are based on current assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, include our dependency on a limited number of products; our ability to demonstrate the benefits of our Lumivascular platform; the resource requirements related to Pantheris; the outcome of clinical trial results; potential exposure to third-party product liability, intellectual property and other litigation; lack of long-term data demonstrating the safety and efficacy of our Lumivascular platform products; experiences of high-volume users of our products may lead to better patient outcomes than those of physicians that are less proficient; reliance on third-party vendors; dependency on physician adoption; reliance on key personnel; and requirements to obtain regulatory approval to commercialize our products; as well as the other risks described in the section entitled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15, 2018. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and should not be unduly relied upon. Avinger disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
Public Relations Contact:
Phil Preuss
VP of Marketing & Business Operations
Avinger, Inc.
(650) 241-7900
Investor Contact:
Mark Weinswig
Chief Financial Officer
Avinger, Inc.
(650) 241-7916
