Hanson Gifford , MD, PhD

Managing Partner
The Foundry
Menlo Park, CA

Since 1998, Mr. Gifford has led The Foundry in all of its activities. These include the invention, identification and development of new technologies, and the formation, financing, and staffing of new companies. Among the companies The Foundry has created are Evalve, Concentric, Emphasys, First to File, Satiety, Xtent, Cierra, Ardian, Cabochon, Miramar, and also ForSight Labs, an ophthalmic device incubator.

Prior to The Foundry, Mr. Gifford was VP of Research and Development at Heartport, Inc. From 1993-1998, he built and led a 62-person team developing novel devices and procedures for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery that were instrumental in the company's successful public offering in 1996. In 1992, Mr. Gifford co-founded and served as managing director of Bavaria Medizin Technologie, GmbH, a German source for innovation and production of catheters for Interventional Cardiology. In 1991, Mr. Gifford served as President of Cardiovascular Therapeutic Technologies, Inc. which was acquired by Eli Lilly. From 1985-1990, Mr. Gifford worked at Devices for Vascular Intervention (DVI) in various Engineering, Clinical Research and Marketing capacities. Before joining DVI, Hanson worked in engineering roles at Oximetrix and General Dynamics.

Mr. Gifford is a co-inventor on over 125 issued and 220 published pending US patents. He earned his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University. Mr. Gifford is a Director of Ardian, Cabochon, Concentric Medical, Miramar Labs, Nexis Vision, and the latest Foundry and ForSight start-ups.