Restera

Millions of people suffer
from sleep apnea every single night

We will not rest until they sleep peacefully.

Sleep Apnea Sufferers Worldwide

Current solutions are not working. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy accounts for 85% of diagnosed sleep apnea patients, yet nearly half don’t comply with the therapy. The devices are cumbersome, loud, uncomfortable and overall intrusive.

1 Billion

Remain Undiagnosed

When untreated, sleep apnea is linked to serious and costly conditions, including drug-resistant hypertension, obesity, congestive heart failure, type-2 diabetes, atrial fibrillation and more.

80%

Economic Impact of Sleep Apnea in the U.S.

Untreated sleep apnea costs the U.S. approximately $150 billion annually, due to the healthcare costs associated with these untreated conditions, as well as loss of productivity, workplace accidents and motor vehicle accidents.

$ 150 Billion

The Problem

Our Solution

Restera is a clinical-stage medical technology company developing a first-of-its-kind treatment for sleep apnea.



Restera’s intelligent neurostimulation system is designed to address the shortcomings of existing therapies, which are expensive, intrusive and yield low patient compliance rates.

Restera has raised $29.5M in funding since 2020 and is backed by leading investors.

Restera’s Board of Directors have extensive operational and financial experience in medical technologies and life sciences, while its Scientific Advisors hail from top universities and medical institutions, including University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, Stanford University, Flinders University, and Monash University.

Restera is changing the sleep apnea treatment paradigm
from high-cost, complex machines,
to smart, comfortable and cost-effective solutions.

Publications

Executive Team

Rick O'Connor

Chief Executive Officer

Biography

Rick is a proven executive in the medical device industry, having successfully developed and commercialized innovative products at both industry-leading public corporations and privately funded start-up entities. Most recently as SVP, Technology and Development at Triple Ring Technologies, Rick led all business units and R&D and brought multiple incubated medical technologies to production. In the pain management field, Rick led the development and commercialization of the first wearable and implantable dorsal root ganglion neural stimulator (VP, Engineering and Operations at Spinal Modulation, acquired by Abbott). In the cardiac space, he developed and brought several generations of implantable cardiac defibrillators and surgical devices to market (Director of R&D at Ventritex, acquired by Abbott and Guidant Corp, acquired by Boston Scientific).

During his 25 years in medical devices, Rick has raised multiple rounds of capital at Lectus Medical, Spinal Modulation and Triple Ring Technologies. He has led organizations through multiple acquisitions and integrations (Hill-Rom, Abbott, Boston Scientific), while successfully leading R&D, operations, quality, marketing and sales teams. Rick began his career in the United States Air Force, where he served as Captain and led F-22 and A-10 developmental flight test engineering. He has 32 issued patents, a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Clarkson University and an M.B.A. from the University of San Francisco.

Tim Fayram

VP Clinical Research

Biography

Tim Fayram has over 25 years of experience as an organizational leader in the implantable medical device field. His areas of expertise include clinical feasibility study management, electro mechanical design, electronics packaging, battery and high voltage capacitor design. He has managed clinical research programs in Cardiac Electrophysiology and Neuromodulation completing three successful First in Human studies.

Prior to joining Invicta Medical, his positions include

  • VP of Clinical Research at Neuspera Medical
  • VP of Research at St. Jude Medical
  • VP of Mechanical Development at St. Jude Medical

He has a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Agricultural Engineering from the University of California at Davis.

Dennis Potts

VP Engineering

Biography

Dennis has worked in implantable medical device R&D for over 25 years holding both functional and management leadership positions. He joined Ventritex in the development of implantable cardiac defibrillators to treat ventricular fibrillation.

At Ventritex (St Jude Medical), he led efforts in pre-production reliability, and mechanical product design and verification. Dennis was an early employee at NeuroPace. As Sr. Director he led the mechanical team from concept to commercialization in the development of a cranially mounted implantable responsive neurostimulator system to treat epilepsy. His skills include electronics packaging, biocompatible materials, process technologies, design and process verification and validation, manufacturing operations, project management and design controls. Dennis earned his B.S. & M.S. Mechanical Engineering from Santa Clara University.

Darlene Crockett-Billig

VP Regulatory and Quality Affairs ( C )

Biography

Darlene is a proven executive in the medical device industry, having co-founded Experien Group in 2003 and supported numerous companies in bringing innovative products from inception to commercialization. During her 45+ year career in the medical device industry, Darlene has directed over 300 successful submissions, including PMAs, IDEs, 510(k)s, HDEs, De Novos’, Technical Files and Design Dossiers. She has been responsible for regulatory affairs, and quality systems activities for a myriad of medical devices, including active implantable devices.

Darlene started her medical device industry career at Medtronic. She provided regulatory, clinical, and quality leadership for a variety of products, including implantable cardiovascular pacemakers and leads.

Darlene received her BA in Biology from Augustana College and MBA from the College of St. Thomas

Guillaume Raux

VP Clinical Affairs

Biography

Guillaume Raux has over 15 years of experience in global Clinical & Regulatory affairs in the fields of Cardiac Rhythm Management, Electrophysiology, Cardiovascular, and Neuromodulation. Guillaume spent 6.5 years at Nyxoah leading the Clinical & Regulatory affairs teams in Europe, Australia, and the US. Guillaume played a key role in obtaining the Genio CE mark, an expanded indication for the therapy, the approval of the US IDE study while helping the company to go public. Prior to Nyxoah, Guillaume held various roles at St Jude Medical. Guillaume holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Tim Ciciarelli

VP Systems, Electrical

Biography

Tim Ciciarelli has over 25 years of medical device experience as an individual contributor and as a leader. He has expertise in electrical hardware, firmware, software and system design.

Most recently he was VP of R&D at Neuspera Medical where he also served as interim co-president. Before that he was Engineering Director at Nanostim. Tim helped both Neuspera and Nanostim develop novel implantable devices outside of the standard "can and lead" paradigm. Tim also served as Director of Product Development, among other positions, at St. Jude Medical (now part of Abbott). Tim began his career as a design engineer at Ventritex, a pioneer of implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

He has a MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Physics from the University of Virginia, where he also studied Computer Science. He has over 20 issued US Patents.

Board of Directors

Rick O'Connor

Chief Executive Officer

Biography

Rick is a proven executive in the medical device industry, having successfully developed and commercialized innovative products at both industry-leading public corporations and privately funded start-up entities. Most recently as SVP, Technology and Development at Triple Ring Technologies, Rick led all business units and R&D and brought multiple incubated medical technologies to production. In the pain management field, Rick led the development and commercialization of the first wearable and implantable dorsal root ganglion neural stimulator (VP, Engineering and Operations at Spinal Modulation, acquired by Abbott). In the cardiac space, he developed and brought several generations of implantable cardiac defibrillators and surgical devices to market (Director of R&D at Ventritex, acquired by Abbott and Guidant Corp, acquired by Boston Scientific).

During his 25 years in medical devices, Rick has raised multiple rounds of capital at Lectus Medical, Spinal Modulation and Triple Ring Technologies. He has led organizations through multiple acquisitions and integrations (Hill-Rom, Abbott, Boston Scientific), while successfully leading R&D, operations, quality, marketing and sales teams. Rick began his career in the United States Air Force, where he served as Captain and led F-22 and A-10 developmental flight test engineering. He has 32 issued patents, a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Clarkson University and an M.B.A. from the University of San Francisco.

Mike Masterson

Supermoon Capital

Biography

Mike Masterson is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Supermoon Capital. Mike has spent his career in venture capital across investing, starting companies, and fundraising. He co-founded Sutter Post Advisors, where he advised and raised capital for private funds and companies, primarily in healthcare and technology, as well as real estate opportunities. Mike held a number of roles with Bay City Capital, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm. Most recently as a Vice President, he sourced and evaluated investment opportunities and supported portfolio companies across several funds. Mike also co-founded Nevro (NYSE:NVRO), a medical device company, where he was responsible for strategy, finance, and operations and also actively involved in fundraising; the company went public in 2014.

Mike received an MBA from INSEAD and an AB with honors from Harvard University, majoring in Economics.

Ismail Kola

Forepont Capital

Biography

Dr. Ismail Kola joined Forepont in 2019 as a General Partner in charge of all scientific decisions. He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Athersys Inc. (ATHX, Nasdaq) and a Director of GPN vaccines (Australia).

Before Forepont, Ismail held several senior executive positions in the pharmaceutical industry. He has published 159 papers in top scientific journals (17,000 citations). His teams have brought numerous major medicines to the market.

Through 2018 Ismail was the CSO of UCB. Previous positions include SVP, Discovery Research & Early Clinical Research, and CSO, Schering Plough; SVP Basic Research and chairman WW Antibacterial Business Strategy, Merck; and VP Research, Genomics at Pharmacia Corporation.

Before his move to Industry, Ismail was a Professor of Human Molecular Genetics, at Monash University Medical School and Director of Research for 15 years.

He holds a Ph.D. (Med) in Medicine, the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Erik Engelson

ShangBay Capital

Biography

Erik Engelson is currently the CEO of Lucira Health, as well as a board member and strategic advisor to Arrinex Inc and ARANZ Medical, Ltd. Previously, he was CEO of Medina Medical, which he sold to Medtronic. Previous associations include Partner at The Foundry, a medical device incubator, CEO of two Foundry companies, CFO of Fluidigm Corporation, and a Venture Partner at both Versant Ventures and Institutional Venture Partners.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Engelson spent 13 years in various operating roles at Target Therapeutics where he led the early-stage startup into the then nascent field of Interventional Neuroradiology, developing its first products and helped take the company public. He is also the inventor of 50+ medical device patents.

Mr. Engelson holds B.A. and M.S. degrees in Microbiology and Bioengineering from UC San Diego, and an Executive MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Andrew Perlman

GreatPoint Ventures

Biography

Founder and Managing Partner of GreatPoint Ventures, Andrew is a serial entrepreneur who has led multiple companies from inception through exit. He began his career at 19, when he dropped out of college to start his first business. In the time since, Andrew has co-founded nine venture-backed companies in industries ranging from semiconductors to natural resources to life sciences. Andrew was also Chief Executive Officer of GreatPoint Energy, which set the record for the most capital raised in China by a U.S. venture-backed company. Andrew is also co-founder of Jetti Resources, a developer of cutting-edge technology to help the mining industry extract vast trapped copper resources. Previously, Andrew co-founded two pharmaceutical companies that went public on the NASDAQ Stock Market. Andrew was profiled by the Wall Street Journal as one of its leading young entrepreneurs “on the move,” chosen by MIT Technology Review as one of its “35 Innovators Under 35” and selected by Crain’s Chicago Business as one of its “40 leaders under 40.”

Seth Winterroth

Eclipse VC

Biography

A Partner at Eclipse VC, Seth invests in technology companies at the nexus of human-computer interaction. He has a deep focus on integrated systems that improve the movement of people and goods, and is eager to build products that help consumers quantify and improve their wellness. Prior to joining Eclipse VC, Seth was a Partner at GE Ventures, where he invested in industrial hardware technologies across robotics, additive manufacturing and industrial IoT. Seth is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College.

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