EXECUTIVE SPOTLIGHT
Admedus COO David St. Denis on Courage, Commitment and Conversation
David St. Denis is currently Chief Operating Officer and member of the executive board at Admedus, a structural heart company delivering clinically superior solutions that help healthcare professionals create life-changing outcomes for patients. Its focus is on investing in and developing next generation technologies with world class partners and acquiring strategic assets to grow product and service offerings. Its current product, based on its revolutionary tissue engineering platform, is focused on the development of treatments for aortic stenosis. What journey took him to this position? He had an auspicious start with ten years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, now Takeda Oncology, starting in 1996. He grew with the company as it progressed through its lifecycle and evolution from R&D through to commercial entity, rising from database management in Genomics Discovery, to portfolio management, and commercial operations. That experience gave him a significant portfolio of skills. 9 | HS&M JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020
It was also during his time at Millennium when David faced his own cancer diagnosis and treatment – an experience that had a profound impact on his patientfocused approach to the healthcare business. From there he took an interesting assignment as Engagement Manager at Model N, the leading provider of revenue management solutions for the life sciences and technology industries. The company helps customers maximize revenues, drive growth and reduce compliance risk by transforming the revenue lifecycle from inefficient disjointed operations into a strategic endto-end process. David delivered projects for managing government pricing, Medicare rebating, managed care contracting and rebating, as well as GPO/IDN contract management. Moving to Merck, he spent the next nine years in numerous roles of diverse responsibility. He began as Associate Director of Marketing Information Systems for their healthcare business, leading the development and global implementation of a digital therapeutic and remote monitoring system (RMS) designed to drive adherence to human growth hormone therapy. The platform was one of the first digital therapeutics available. In 2010, he became Merck’s Senior Director for Strategy and Operations in Emerging Markets, responsible for articulating goto-market strategies for emerging market countries and sub-regions, as well as defining operating models and driving efficiencies. He led
a regional team to analyze major markets in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), as well as smaller sub-regions, to define the product mix, commercial and operational footprint, and capabilities required to maximize penetration and efficiency. His last position there was as Head of Commercial Operations, Europe for the biopharma business. As a member of the regional executive team, he led Marketing Excellence, Launch Excellence (preparing oncology and immunooncology product market entry), Sales Effectiveness, Business Intelligence, and Patient Services. Viewing this span, now including his responsibilities at Admedus, David has covered the field in pharmaceuticals, biopharma and medical device, leading teams in driving go-to-market strategies, most recently as head of the commercial organization at Admedus to achieve more than 60% revenue growth in a single year. He has also developed and implemented market access and contracting strategies, operating models and long-term plans, and has led the global implementation of digital therapeutic and remote monitoring systems. His experience covers a broad spectrum of therapeutic areas, such as oncology, immunooncology, neurodegenerative disease, metabolic disease, and cardiovascular disease. While at Admedus, he has gained new experience in structural heart disease, including congenital defects and valve disease. Having covered that much healthcare, executive and geographic