Three months after Dave Scott announced his sudden departure from the helm of Hyperfine—after he’d spent just one year in the position—the portable MRI machine maker has found a new leader.
Taking the reins at the end of this month will be Maria Sainz, Hyperfine announced Thursday. As of Oct. 24, she’ll become president and CEO of the company, while Scott Huennekens, who stepped into that dual role on an interim basis during the hiring process, will stay on as executive chairperson of Hyperfine’s board.
Scott’s exit was made official at the end of July. In a release issued a month before, the company cited “personal reasons” for the executive change-up. Scott said in a statement at the time that he was “disappointed” to have to step away from the company only about a year after his June 2021 appointment, during which time he led Hyperfine through its transition to a public company via a $580 million SPAC deal.
Sainz is joining Hyperfine with three decades of experience in the medtech industry under her belt. She spent more than a decade at cardiac devicemaker Guidant, culminating in a stint as president of its cardiac surgery business amid the company’s sale to Boston Scientific.
She went on to serve as president and CEO of Concentric Medical—which was bought out by Stryker in 2011—then to hold the same title first at Cardiokinetix, then at Aegea Medical, which was sold to CooperSurgical early last year.
Sainz has been a member of Hyperfine’s board of directors since the company’s public debut on the Nasdaq in late December 2021. In her new role with the company, she’ll head up the commercial expansion of the FDA-cleared Swoop portable MRI system.
“With over 90 systems installed globally and our growing value proposition in the ICU and neurocritical care settings, we have established a strong foundation to drive forward commercial momentum,” she said in a statement. “I am eager to join the Hyperfine team as we expand to additional hospitals and continue increasing our clinical applications to improve patient care in mature and emerging healthcare systems.”
The Swoop technology is a compact system that can be wheeled directly to a patient’s bedside to perform conventional MRI scans in just a few minutes. It requires only a standard wall outlet to run and is controlled using a connected iPad. The system is also embedded with artificial intelligence algorithms to help clear up the resulting images, making it easier for doctors to make accurate diagnoses using the scans.
In its most recent financial report—released in August and covering the first six months of 2022—Hyperfine charted revenues of just over $3 million for the first half of the year, compared to only $689,000 for the same period the previous year.