Meet the team
behind Nephrodite
Leadership
Nikhil L. Shah DO, MPH
Nikhil L. Shah DO, MPH
Dr. Shah serves as CEO and is a co-Founder of the company. He is a board-certified Urologist with subspecialty training in Urologic Oncology, reconstruction and surgical diseases of the Kidney. He has performed thousands of minimally invasive surgical procedures. Dr. Shah has served as an adjunct Associate Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Department Computer Science, Divisions of Robotics as well as Human-Machine Interactions. He has been a medical, clinical and strategic Advisor to Industry and has held many executive leadership positions within healthcare systems. Dr. Shah has been involved in several medical device start-ups and continues to educate and mentor students at different levels across many varying areas of study.
Hiep T. Nguyen, MD
Hiep T. Nguyen, MD
Dr. Nguyen serves as Chief Science Officer and is a co-Founder of the company. He is a Board-certified Pediatric Urologist with specialty training in renal transplantation. He is currently Director of Pediatric Urology at Banner Health System in Phoenix, Arizona. Prior to this, he was Associate Professor in Surgery (Urology) at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Robotic Surgery, Research and Training Center at Children’s Hospital, Boston. During his time at Harvard, he was named the Rose Zimmerman Mandell Chair in Innovative Urological Technology. Dr. Nguyen received his medical degree and completed his Surgery and Urology residency at the University of California, San Francisco. He also completed a fellowship in Pediatric Urology at Children’s Hospital of Boston. Dr. Nguyen is actively involved in research focusing on kidney disease, dialysis, vesicoureteral reflux, prenatal hydronephrosis, molecular imaging, and robotics/minimally invasive surgery. He has authored many publications and presented as a Peer Mentor and Expert across the Globe.
Vikram Vijayvergiya
Vikram Vijayvergiya
Vik Vijayvergiya serves as the CFO and co-Founder. He brings 28 years of specialty management experience with expertise in business development, finance, strategy, M&A, product management and international business at Fortune 500 companies. He has a track record of developing and managing high performing teams. He also servesd on the Board of Directors for the Atlanta chapter of The Indus Entrepreneur (TIE), the largest global organization with a mission of mentoring entrepreneurs. He holds a Master of Science in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas in Austin.
Niraj Khurana
Niraj Khurana
Serves as the Director of Finance and Operations. He comes to Nephrodite as a strategic executive with CPO (Chief Procurement Officer) level of successes achieved by providing sourcing and supply chain direction to large, diverse organizations on a national and global scale. His core strengths revolve around strategic sourcing and planning, driving efficient processes, implementation of procurement governance policies and procedures, employment of best practice processes, and strategic critical thinking. Mr. Khurana is known for maintaining the highest level of integrity, having excellent communication skills, dedication to continual learning, and effective team management skills.
Niraj’s success has been predicated upon his ability to combine strong business acumen and process best practices expertise to ensure stakeholder engagement and buy in of the implementation of effective sourcing strategies (such as the Seven Step Sourcing Process). Unique understanding of cross-cultural relationships based on implementing strategic sourcing and business solutions leadership in a global setting. He possesses a strong executive presence in building responsive Sourcing organizations in alignment with business strategy, spearheading Procurement vision, strategy, and operations improvements in continuously changing environments.
Jule Goike, PhD
Jule Göike, PhD
Jule serves as the R&D Manager for Nephrodite, Inc. In her position, she leads a team of consultants, advisors, engineers and scientists, including development partners and CRO’s in conducting research and development for the Holly device. In her role, she provides leadership through thinking broadly, working cross-functionally, and providing supporting collaboration, as well as building strong empowering foundations. While at the University of Texas within both the Cockrell School of Engineering and at the McCombs School of Business, she keenly observed the ESRD environment and dialysis ecosystem, quickly absorbed relevant information, helped identify device development needs and risks, and has been managing the execution of assessments and design validations to drive product development.
Rohit Karnik, PhD
Rohit Karnik, PhD
Dr. Rohit Karnik is currently a Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) . He joined MIT in October 2006 as Postdoctoral Associate and has been serving as a faculty in Mechanical Engineering at MIT since 2007.
Dr. Karnik completed his B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay in the year 2002, which was followed by an M.S. in 2004 and Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of California, Berkeley. From his undergrad days at IIT Bombay, he particularly remembers working at nights on their ‘bottle filling’ machine for the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Student Design Competition, while doing regular classwork during the day. “I also have many fond memories of my friends and teachers at IIT Bombay, who played an important role in shaping my character and destiny,” he added. Dr. Karnik was awarded the Institute Silver Medal by IIT Bombay in the year 2002. Today, Dr. Karnik is globally known for his work in the area of micro- and nanofluidics for applications in health care and energy systems. He has developed devices for control of nanoscale fluid flows including the nanofluidic diode, transistor, and sensors. His group has advanced novel nanoporous membrane materials for water filtration and gas separations, and obtained fundamental insights into nanoscale fluid flows. They have moreover, developed new technologies for microfluidic separation and analysis of cells, and have created microfluidic devices to better control and optimize nanoparticles for drug delivery. Dr. Karnik has furthermore, played a crucial role in the development of the Micro and Nanoengineering Laboratory class for undergraduate students at MIT.
Dr. Karnik has delivered invited lectures in different parts of the Globe and has over 50 research papers to his credit. He has filed over 10 patent applications and has supervised numerous theses at undergraduate, masters and doctoral levels. He is a proud recipient of several awards and honours including the Best Poster Award in the MEMS Division, Nanotechnology Forum, ASME Congress (2013); Department of Energy Early Career Award (2012); Keenan Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Education (2011); Grand Prize in the Nanotechnology Forum, ASME Congress (2010); National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2010); D’Arbeloff Career Development Assistant Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2008); and National Talent Search Scholarship, Government of India (1996), to mention a few.
Timothy Duggins
Timothy Duggins
A regulatory compliance/quality management system expert who has demonstrated superior business acumen and a record of success through more than 30 years hands on experience in fully compliant regulatory processes and quality management systems.
In the last three years created, submitted and successfully obtained more than 30 USFDA, EU CE, Canadian, Australian, Ukrainian, Czech, Japanese or similar market access approvals for individual products or family groups of similar products. These projects involved working individually or leading a team from research and development, determining regulatory pathway of least resistance with the broadest possible market access, designing/implementing preclinical and clinical evaluations and lastly preparing technical documentation such as risk assessments, STED Files and labeling and packaging. Developed quickest and most cost-effective time to market strategies to obtain a combination of low hanging fruit as well as establish market domination. Obtained regulatory agency agreement on path forward through Agreement Meetings or other pre-submission collaboration meetings.
Broad range of expertise in the implementation and interpretation of ISO 13485 or 17025 quality management systems; Risk Classification; ISO 14791; Essential Requirements Checklists, Safety and Effectiveness Checklists; Common Technical Standards (CTS); Batch Release Testing; Harmonized Standards; Vigilance; Declarations of Conformity; design dossier assessments; MEDDEV Guidelines, and Global Harmonization Task Force (GHTF) or IMDRF Guidance Documents.
The “go to” person when Regulatory Inspectors, Notified Body Assessors or key customers are at your premises. Authoritative expertise, calm reassuring demeanor, quick thinker and superior negotiating skills ensure favorable outcomes.
Christine Neipert, PhD
Christine Neipert, PhD
Christine Neipert, PhD is a passionate entrepreneur in the healthcare space. Prior to joining Nephrodite, she co-founded a healthcare delivery practice and an immune-oncology company. Dr. Neipert has worked as a consultant for Baird Capital to assist with investment target diligence as well as served as the operations and intellectual property director for a renal therapeutics start-up company. Prior to this experience, Dr. Neipert was an intellectual property licensing manager at the University of Miami, and an in-house intellectual property technical specialist for private industry. Dr. Neipert received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from USF and subsequently became a Registered US Patent Agent.
Michael Liang, PhD
Michael Liang, PhD
Michael Liang is a seasoned health care venture investor. Before founding Invivium Capital, Mike was with Baird Capital concentrating on health care investments. Prior to joining Baird Capital, Mike was a venture investor with Advent Venture Partners and before that served in an operating role as a Director of R&D at Cortek, a spinal orthopedics company. Mike is currently a member of the board of directors of Amphora Medical, GenomeDx Biosciences, Insightra Medical, Veniti, Zurex Pharma, Integrated Diagnostics and Apervita, serving as chairman of the board for Insightra Medical and Veniti. Mike received a BS from the University of California Berkeley and a PhD in biophysical chemistry from Stanford University and conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.
Martin McGahan, MBA
Martin McGahan, MBA
Martin McGahan is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group (HIG) in Atlanta. He is Co-Head of HIG and brings more than 15 years of healthcare operations and finance experience.
Mr. McGahan works with healthcare organizations to drive operational and financial performance improvement. His expertise in corporate finance, restructuring and the raising of capital (including public and private sources of both debt and equity) enables his clients to strategically re-engineer balance sheets for long-term stability and growth. Mr. McGahan advises several companies in the healthcare services and pharmaceutical/biotechnology industries.
Currently, Mr. McGahan serves as a Restructuring Adviser to several major providers of home healthcare, assisted living facilities and senior housing. He is also advising a clinical research organization on operational restructuring and capitalization alternatives. Recently, Mr. McGahan served as Chief Restructuring Officer of Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers (a $1.5 billion health system in New York City).
Before that, Mr. McGahan served as CFO of St. Vincent’s, where he refinanced its debt at more favorable rates and terms and supervised the restructuring of the system’s financial infrastructure, including the revenue cycle and billing functions, managed care contracts, accounting, treasury, financial reporting and IT platform. St. Vincent’s successfully emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2007. Previously, he took on interim management roles with several troubled healthcare companies, including serving as CFO of World Health Alternatives and Chief Administrative Officer of Orthodontic Centers of America.
Prior to joining A&M, Mr. McGahan was President, Chief Operating Officer and board member of Healthtronics Surgical Services, a publicly-traded provider of outsourced services for hospitals and a medical device maker. He has spent a majority of his career in healthcare, serving as Vice President of Healthmarket Inc., a health insurance provider for individuals and small businesses; Senior VP and divisional CFO of Saks Inc.; the Executive Director of the Alabama Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Clinic; and Director of Business Development at Surgical Care Affiliates. He began his career at Chase Manhattan Bank.
Mr. McGahan earned a bachelor’s degree from Villanova University and an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.
Medical Advisory Board
Kenneth Woodside, MD
Renal Transplantation, Vascular Access, Endovascular Surgery
Kenneth Woodside, MD
Renal Transplantation, Vascular Access, Endovascular Surgery
Kenneth J. Woodside, MD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, Section of Transplantation. Dr. Woodside received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Michigan, also completing the Howard Hughes Medical Institute – National Institutes of Health Research Scholars Program at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He went on to complete his general surgery residency and transplant immunology research postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) in 2006. He completed a two-year fellowship in transplant surgery at the University of Michigan in 2009. Following fellowship, he was faculty at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland. He returned as transplant surgery faculty to the University of Michigan in 2015.
Clinical Specialization: Dr. Woodside’s clinical interests focus on kidney and pancreas transplantation, as well as open and endovascular dialysis access surgery.
Charmaine Lok, MD
Charmaine Lok, MD
Professor, Dr. Lok is the Medical Director of both the Chronic Kidney Diseases and Hemodialysis Vascular Access Programs. She is a clinical trialist with a research focus on chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end stage kidney disease (ESKD) outcomes.
Dirk Hentschel, MD
Advisors / Consultants
Leah Kim, MBA
Leah Kim, MBA
Leah is a multilingual marketing & strategy executive who has been in the Global Healthcare space 15+ years. She worked in the U.K., Brazil, Singapore, and Korea as an expat and currently resides in Chicago. Leah has been heavily involved in the Kidney care market in the past few years managing hospital operations for patients with renal failure. She is passionate about improving the quality of patient care and the innovation piece that comes with it. Leah holds an MBA from Kellogg, Northwestern and serves as the global Marketing & Business Development advisor for Nephrodite.
Anthony Rodriguez, PhD
Anthony Rodriguez, PhD
Anthony is a seasoned marketing executive with expertise specifically in helping companies and products develop to and through commercialization. He is highly effective in bringing disruptive medical technologies from first-in-man to commercialization relying on my training as a bioengineer and experience in leading market development. He is experienced in leading/training diverse global teams of engineers, marketers, field sales, and clinicians to achieve both upstream and downstream commercialization goals. He employs a creative and persuasive strategy in generating and selling new initiatives to address unmet needs to all levels from technician to CEO and strategic investors. Given his experience with companies like St. Jude Medical, TVA Medical W.L. Gore and others, he has developed a broad network of key opinion leaders spanning various disciplines within the dialysis market.
Romil Bahl, MBA
Romil Bahl, MBA
Mr. Bahl is an innovative, entrepreneurial, growth and results-driven executive with extensive experience building top performing information, product and professional services companies across a range of industries including IoT, Healthcare & Connected Car/Auto/Fleet Management. He is a high impact leader adept at understanding diverse market opportunities, translating business challenges into compelling strategies that change the trajectory of a company and its team to achieve consistent breakthrough results. A Quality Communicator with a reputation and long legacy of building trust-based relationships with diverse constituencies; a Global Citizen who has led global companies and business units in many countries across four continents; a Pioneer and Leader in the high secular growth platforms of Analytics and Healthcare having been a thought-leader for over a decade in the field of ‘making money from information’.
As a third time CEO, Romil has had both public company and private equity experience, and is an excellent coach for CEOs, as he is for his executive teams, many of whom have worked with him at multiple companies. His Board
of Directors experience includes several small companies, the IoT M2M Council (IMC), the Institute of Financial Operations and the Advisory Council of the MS/MBA program at the University of Texas at Austin.
In his role as CEO of KORE, Romil has furthered his IoT and analytics-centric career and has crafted a strategy to position the business as a one-of-a-kind solutions enabler and global independent IoT CaaS (Connectivity as a Service) provider with a leadership position in delivering IoT solutions. Furthering the company’s legacy in advanced connectivity, KORE is now positioned to provide core networking and other Connectivity Enablement services and importantly, is one of the world’s first providers of both multi-IMSI and eSIM-based intelligent switching.
Before KORE, Romil was CEO of Lochbridge, a company which he pivoted to a Connected Car focus and successfully exited to a strategic buyer in the summer of 2017. Prior roles include CEO of PRGX, a procurement and health care analytics company, and leadership of a $9 Billion unit of CSC. Before that, he ran the global Systems Integration unit of Infosys and was President of EDS’ Global Consulting unit.
Romil has an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Engineering from DMET, India (admitted via the IIT joint entrance examination). Prior to coming to the US for his graduate studies, Romil worked in both India and France and speaks Hindi, French and Punjabi.
Derek Kane, MBA
Derek Kane, MBA
Mr. Kane joins Nephrodite to advise the company on matters of product design, development, human use factors and manufacturing.
Mr. Kane has more than 20 years of contract manufacturing experience in progressive leadership roles in high-growth environments. He has an established record of bringing new innovative medical devices to the market and into volume production around the world overseeing key areas of the organization including engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and quality assurance.
Prior to joining KMC Systems, Mr. Kane served as Executive Vice President and Divisional General Manager for Inventus Power where he was responsible for the company’s American operations and Medical and Military Global Business. Previously, he served as the Global Business Unit Director at Jabil, responsible for Global Healthcare Business including manufacturing design and development of class I, II and III Medical devices.
Mr. Kane earned an Executive MBA from the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of the West of Scotland.
