About us
Cala Health is a bioelectronic medicine company transforming the standard of care for chronic disease. The company’s wearable neuromodulation therapies merge innovations in neuroscience and technology to deliver individualized peripheral nerve stimulation, and its vertically integrated commercial model is reshaping the delivery of prescription therapies. Cala Health’s lead product, Cala Trio™, is the only non-invasive prescription therapy for essential tremor.
Meet the executive team
Renee Ryan has 25 years of experience in building category-creating healthcare companies. She led the medical technology investments for Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JJDC) on the West Coast and Asia Pacific for 8 years. While at J&J, she made over 15 new investments, including the Series A for Cala Health. Before that, she had been a healthcare investment banker at RW Baird, Jefferies and Goldman Sachs.
Kate Rosenbluth is a Founder, Member of the Board of Directors, and Chief Scientific Officer at Cala Health. She has previously served as Chief Executive Officer and raised three rounds of financing totaling over $80M. She is an engineer and neuroscientist, and has worked on cutting-edge neurotherapies at Stanford Biodesign, UCSF Neurosurgery, Brainlab, Autonomic Technologies and Genentech.
Doug Biehn previously served as the Executive Vice President of Marketing responsible for leading the growth strategy for iRhythm Technologies, one of the fastest growing digital health companies and also originated from the Stanford BioDesign program. He has also served as the Chief Operating Officer of AliveCor, Inc., a pioneer in AI enabled ECG detection ranked by Fast Company as one of the most innovative healthcare companies in 2017 and Chief Marketing Officer at Blue Shield of California where he helped achieve the fastest growing Blue Plan nationwide. Doug has a B.S. in Business Administration & Marketing from San Francisco State University and an M.B.A. from the University of San Francisco. Doug is a Board Advisor for a number of early stage digital health companies as well as volunteers as a Mentor for the Stanford Graduate School of Business Lean Launchpad program.
Tim Gallagher has over 20 years of experience working at companies that produce physical products, including Amazon's hardware division Lab126 and Google. Most recently, he was the CFO at a London-based hardware startup producing electronic keyboards. He started in contract manufacturing specializing in supply chain and operations and has over eight years of international experience in various European countries. Outside of work, he enjoys golfing and traveling with his wife.
Deanna Harshbarger has spent 16 years in the medical device industry leading global upstream, downstream and clinical marketing teams in various positions at Medtronic, Boston Scientific, and Johnson & Johnson. She focused on building innovative pipelines and new franchises. Prior to her career in healthcare, Deanna spent time as a researcher and engineer in various industries. Deanna holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BS in Chemical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.
Steve Higa has held numerous manufacturing, operational, and engineering roles in Silicon Valley. Prior to joining Cala Health, Steve worked as VP, Manufacturing for miraDry and held a VP, Operations role for Zoll Circulation. Steve holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University. Outside of work, he enjoys golfing, watching basketball (Go Warriors!), and visiting Disneyland with his family.
Greg has 20 years of experience in product strategy, design, and engineering for companies and clients of all sizes focused in medical, utility, and consumer electronics. A mechanical engineer by training, Greg cofounded Guide Medical Ventures in 2011, managing strategic vision and technology for a portfolio of 6 start-ups in the medical device space. Prior to joining Cala Health, Greg led engineering at Mindtribe, a boutique hardware development consultancy acquired by Accenture. Greg started his career at Medtronic as a mechanical design engineer in neurological leads and honed his engineering leadership at Intelect Medical (acquired by Boston Scientific), Enpath Medical and EnteroMedics
Jeron Evans joins Cala Health after previously serving as Vice President and Global Head of the Psoriasis Franchise at UCB BioPharma where he was responsible for building and leading the US dermatology business including sales, marketing and medical teams. He then went on to lead a global commercial team managing a portfolio of dermatology assets.
Prior to UCB, Jeron served as Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at Dermira, Inc., a fully integrated specialty pharmaceutical company. Jeron was the first commercial employee at Dermira and worked across all commercial functions. Dermira was acquired by Lilly in a transaction greater than $1B.
Jeron holds a Bachelor Science degree in Psychology from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Everest University.
Bernie is a senior medical device attorney with prior experience at GE, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Miramar Labs and Earlens Corporation. He joined Cala Health as the General Counsel. Cala Health makes the Cala Trio, the first non-invasive targeted therapy that reduces hand tremors for adults living with Essential Tremor (ET). Prescription therapy is a simple, wrist-worn device that is calibrated to treat a patient’s unique tremor symptoms. When activated, Cala Trio gently stimulates the nerves in the wrist to disrupt the tremulous activity in the brain, without the need for invasive brain surgery or medication.
Board members
Ms. Enxing Seng serves as Cala’s Chair as well an Independent Director and Committee Member for both public and venture-backed private companies across the healthcare ecosystem. In addition to Cala, Ms. Enxing Seng currently serves as Vice Chairwoman and non-executive Independent Director and member of the Compensation Committee for Sonova Holding AG (VTX: SOON) and non-executive Independent Director and Chair of the Compensation Committee for LivaNova, Inc. (NASDAQ: LIVN). Stacy also serves as Chairwoman of the Board for Contego as well as a non-executive Independent Director for the Fogarty Institute, a non-profit educational innovator. Past Director appointments include non-executive Independent Director and member of the Compensation and Management Committee for Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (exited to Baxter), Independent Director for Vesper Medical (exited to Philipps), PreCARDIA Inc, (exited to Abiomed), Claret Inc, (exited to Boston Scientific), Spirox, (exited to Entellus/Abbott), FIRE 1, (Covidien/Medtronic Investment), CVI (exited to Covidien/Medtronic) and Solace Therapeutics. Since 2016, Stacy also serves as an Operating Partner with Lightstone Ventures.
An accomplished executive leader, Stacy has over 30 years in sales, marketing and operational leadership roles building innovative technology portfolios, demonstrated clinical outcomes, exceptional management teams and world-class company cultures. She has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Women in Business and is a frequent speaker on healthcare, innovation leadership and corporate culture.
Prior to Independent Director work, Stacy served as the President of Covidien’s $1.7B Vascular Therapies business. Stacy joined Covidien following its $2.6B acquisition of ev3 Inc., a medical technology start-up that Stacy co-created in 2000 with ev3’s founding team. Over the course of her career, Stacy has been involved in the launch of over 20 medtech technologies, more than 10 substantive M&A transactions, and under her operating leadership, a reputation of achieving world class customer and employee engagement.
Stacy’s earlier work in medtech included sales and marketing leadership roles with SCIMED/Boston Scientific and sales and product management roles with American Hospital Supply/Baxter.
Education: B.A. in Public Policy from Michigan State University, M.B.A. from Harvard University, Executive Course on Governance from Stanford Business School
Mr. Carusi is a General Partner and Team Leader of Lightstone Ventures (LSV) and focuses on investments in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors. He is based in the firm’s Menlo Park, CA office, where he also serves as a General Partner at Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV). His representative investments include Allay Therapeutics, Altura Medical (acquired by Lombard), Ardian (acquired by Medtronic), Cala Health, EndoGastric Solutions, Gynesonics, MediSix Therapeutics, MicroVention (acquired by Terumo), Nuvaira, Plexxikon (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo), PowerVision (acquired by Alcon), Second Genome, Shoulder Innovations, Tallac Therapeutics, and Willow. Featured on the Forbes Midas List of top technology and life science investors, Mike is a recognized thought leader in the industry and a frequent speaker at healthcare conferences. He serves as an Adjunct Professor at the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. In addition, Mike has been heavily involved with several programs at Stanford University including the Stanford Biodesign Program and, more recently, the Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Research and Education (Spectrum). Lastly, Mike served as a Director on the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Board of Directors and remains active in helping to shape policy affecting both innovation and healthcare.
Earlier in his career, Mike served as a Director of Business Development for Inhale Therapeutic Systems (now Nektar Therapeutics, NASDAQ: NKTR), a venture-backed pulmonary drug delivery company that went public in 1994. At Inhale, Mike led partnering activities with a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Mike also was a Principal at The Wilkerson Group, a leading management consulting firm focused exclusively on healthcare. At The Wilkerson Group, Mike helped establish the firm’s offices in London and San Francisco.
Education: M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business; B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University
Ms. Kobe joined Baird Capital in 2018 and is a Principal on the Healthcare investment team. Amy currently serves on the board of directors of Cala Health, Saranas and Virtual Incision and is a board observer for Jumpcode Genomics, Upfront Healthcare, OncoHealth, Strata Oncology and AiCure. Before joining Baird Capital, Amy was a venture investor with Baxter Healthcare, focusing on medical devices, monitoring and health IT opportunities. Before that, she was with Healthbox, focused on tech-enabled products and services for payer and provider systems. She was also previously a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and began her career at Genentech. Amy earned a B.S. and M.S. in chemical engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management with majors in finance and decision sciences. She is also a member of the Economic Club of Chicago where she was invited to serve on the Young Leaders Committee.
Mr. Kuelper is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Healthcare Technology at Ascension Ventures, a strategic venture capital and growth equity firm with over $1 billion under management which invests in health IT, health services, medical devices and diagnostics on behalf of thirteen of the nation's largest non-profit health systems. John focuses on investments in data-intensive enterprise and clinical technologies that serve healthcare providers and consumers.
John is Founder and President of Qualia Holdings LLC, a platform for systems biology and software ventures. He has advised or worked for several investment firms (Adams Street Partners, Sterling Partners, Abundant Venture Partners), life sciences companies (Stereotaxis, Orpheden Therapeutics), and non-profits (The Kresge Foundation, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association). John began his career as a medical researcher studying computational neuroscience and medical robotics and has over fifteen years of experience as a commercial software developer.
John earned JD and MBA degrees from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and Kellogg School of Management where he graduated with honors and was elected Beta Gamma Sigma (top 10% of class). He earned a BA in cognitive neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis, graduating magna cum laude. In 2014 he was elected to the Kauffman Fellows Society.
Asha Nayak has over 20 years of experience in healthcare innovation, across medical devices, biopharma, and consumer/digital health. She is Vice President of Venture Investments at Johnson & Johnson and oversees JJDC’s Consumer Health investments.
Prior to this, Asha was Chief Medical Officer at Intel Corporation where she led internal health technology development programs and guided Intel Capital’s venture investment strategy in healthcare. Before that, she invested in medical devices at New Leaf Venture Partners, and led the development of advanced cardiovascular technologies at Medtronic, Inc.
Throughout her career, Asha has maintained a clinical practice at the Stanford VA hospital in Palo Alto, California. Asha has served as an Independent Board Member and strategic medical contributor in several companies, including Sage Therapeutics, HD Medical and Medal Inc.
Asha holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from Florida State University, and a M.D. & Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Colorado. She completed a Biodesign Innovation Fellowship and Internal Medicine Residency at Stanford University.
Dr. Rosenbluth is a Founder, Member of the Board of Directors, and Chief Scientific Officer at Cala Health. She has previously served as Chief Executive Officer and raised three rounds of financing totaling over $80M. She is an engineer and neuroscientist who previously worked on cutting edge neurotherapies at Stanford Biodesign, UCSF Neurosurgery, Brainlab, Autonomic Technologies and Genentech.
Renee Ryan has 25 years of building category-creating healthcare companies. She led the medical technology investments for Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JJDC) on the West Coast and Asia Pacific for 8 years. While at J&J, she made over 15 new investments, including the Series A for Cala Health. Previously, she was a healthcare investment banker at RW Baird, Jefferies and Goldman Sachs.
Mr. Tiwari joined Magnetar Capital in May 2021 as a founding member of Magnetar’s Private Healthcare strategy. Prior to Magnetar, since 2019 Neil was Managing Director, dRx Capital for Novartis where he led 10+ investments and sat on 8 boards. Prior to this role, Neil served as a Principal in the fund since 2017. Neil started his career as a product development engineer in 2006 and led complex engineering teams on development and launch of 10 medical devices and software products and is an inventor on 13 patents from his work in this space. Additionally, Neil is currently an independent board director at Science 37 and board director at Mekonos. Neil has a BS & MS in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University & an MBA from the Haas School of Business at Berkeley.
