Cardiology Vet Marvin L. Woodall Named CEO of CRF

A long-standing veteran and pioneer in the cardiovascular device field, Marvin L. Woodall was named chief executive officer (CEO) of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) Aug. 9, 2006. The position of CEO was newly created in an effort to both manage CRF’s continuing growth and provide leadership for the organization going forward.

“For nearly two decades, Marv Woodall has been a highly respected leader in the interventional vascular medicine community,” said CRF Founder Martin B. Leon, MD, Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. “I have no doubt that he is the right person to provide the strong leadership necessary to take CRF into the future.”

Innovation
From 1988 to 1996, Woodall was president of Johnson & Johnson Interventional Systems (JJIS). At JJIS, he led the team responsible for developing the original Palmaz-Schatz Coronary Stent, which was designated “the most important new medical device in the past 15 years” in a survey of medical device company CEOs in 1996. In 1995, he initiated the original drug-eluting stent (DES) research that led to the first FDA-approved DES. Subsequently, Woodall served as chairman of the board of trustees of Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network. He is currently on the boards of several physician and health care-related organizations.

Looking ahead
“For 15 years, CRF has played a pivotal role in advancing the field of interventional cardiology,” said Woodall. “In the future, we will accelerate and expand our educational, research and academic programs.”

Woodall will be responsible for all administrative aspects of CRF, organizing CRF around its three major areas of focus: professional education, clinical research and preclinical research. Leon and Woodall both noted key milestones that have led to CRF’s rapid growth to its current level of almost 200 employees. These included partnership with Columbia University Medical Center in 2004 and the opening of CRF’s preclinical facility, the Jack H. Skirball Center for Cardiovascular Research in 2005.

Woodall, who served on CRF’s board of directors for the past six years, met Leon when they attended the first-ever Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting in Washington in 1988. The two subsequently collaborated on the development of the Palmaz-Schatz Coronary Stent.

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