Shockwave Medical has announced that Nick West has joined the company in the role of associate chief medical officer (CMO). He will report to current CMO Keith Dawkins, and will be based in Santa Clara (USA) with plans to succeed Dawkins as CMO in mid-2024.
“Dr West brings to Shockwave a wealth of expertise in the interventional cardiology space,” said Dawkins. “Having known Nick for many years, I am confident that his expertise will be highly influential in further developing intravascular lithotripsy (IVL) as the standard of care for calcium modification, and will also be a valued asset in the evaluation and development of novel transformational technologies to augment our portfolio in the years to come.”
West joins Shockwave from Abbott Vascular, where he served as CMO and divisional vice president of global medical affairs for the past four years. Prior to his time with Abbott, West served as an attending cardiologist at the Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (Cambridge, UK).
“There is no denying the exceptional job Shockwave has done to generate significant momentum behind IVL in a relatively short period of time. I am extremely excited to utilise everything I have learned from my time both in industry and previously as an interventional cardiologist to help continue to propel Shockwave forward as one of the most innovative players in the cardiovascular space,” said West. “I look forward to contributing to the company’s mission of developing exceptional solutions to revolutionize treatments for underserved patient populations.”
West graduated in medicine from Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK) and St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School (London, UK) and trained in interventional cardiology at the John Radcliffe Hospital (Oxford, UK) and Green Lane Hospital (Auckland, New Zealand). He has published over 170 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on topics including vascular biology, coronary physiology/microvascular function, intracoronary imaging/vulnerable plaque detection, and bioresorbable scaffold technology. He is a founding member and CMO of the Cambridge-based vulnerable plaque startup, PlaqueTec, and sits on the Innovation Council of the UCLA School of Biodesign.
West was also a co-author of the ILUMIEN IV late-breaking clinical trial presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress (25–28 August, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) last month. “His expertise in intravascular imaging will be especially beneficial to many Shockwave IVL customers as the use of imaging continues to increase, and, as a result, there arises a greater appreciation for the presence and diverse morphology of cardiovascular calcium,” Dawkins concluded.
