Cyberkinetics, Inc. Strengthens Management Team to Focus on Intellectual Property and Salt Lake City Operations

Business Wire,  Sept 23, 2003  

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Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

BIOWIRE2K

FOXBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 23, 2003

Cyberkinetics, Incorporated, a pioneer in the emerging field of neurotechnology, announced today the promotion of Brian Hatt, Ph.D. to Executive Vice President and General Manager, Salt Lake City Operations and the appointment of J. Christopher Flaherty as Executive Vice President, Technology and Intellectual Property.

Dr. Hatt will be responsible for Cyberkinetics' research, development and manufacturing operations in Salt Lake City as well as for all software development. He will also continue to provide strategic support in the Company's sales and marketing efforts and overall business strategy. Christopher Flaherty will be responsible for the continued development of Cyberkinetics' leading intellectual property portfolio in the area of devices which provide digital access to the brain.

"Both Chris and Brian are experienced managers who have held senior positions in large companies and have run their own operations. I am delighted to have such strong players on the Cyberkinetics team as we build a world class medical device company in the exciting new area of brain-computer interfaces," said Timothy R. Surgenor, President and CEO of Cyberkinetics, Inc.

Brian Hatt, Ph.D. most recently served as Vice President, Development for Cyberkinetics. Dr. Hatt was co-founder and President of Bionic Technologies, LLC, which merged with Cyberkinetics in late 2002. He held senior management positions in the U.S. and the U.K. with various high-tech subsidiaries of Elkem A/S, a Norwegian multinational company. Dr. Hatt was also tenured faculty in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Aston in Birmingham, U.K. He holds a Ph.D. and B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham, U.K.

With more than 15 years of medical device company experience, Mr. Flaherty was most recently a founder, President and COO of Insulet Corporation, where he oversaw the development of the first fully disposable programmable infusion pump for subcutaneous delivery of insulin for diabetic patients. Prior to Insulet, Mr. Flaherty co-founded and was Executive Vice President of TransVascular, Inc. of Menlo Park California, where he led the development of numerous interventional products including an ultrasonically guided drug delivery catheter as well as a system of interventional products used by a cardiologist to perform the first ever completely percutaneous coronary bypass procedure. TransVascular was recently acquired by Medtronic. Mr. Flaherty has also held positions at Pfizer and Strato Medical. Mr. Flaherty has a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

About Cyberkinetics, Inc.

Cyberkinetics is a leader in neurotechnology, an emerging field driven by advances in neuroscience, computer science, and engineering that promises to revolutionize the medical treatment of nervous system dysfunction. Cyberkinetics first product, BrainGate(TM), is designed to give severely paralyzed patients a permanent, direct brain-computer interface for the purpose of communication and control of a computer. Cyberkinetics' intellectual property features key technologies licensed from Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emory University, and the University of Utah. Cyberkinetics is headquartered in Foxborough, Massachusetts and conducts engineering and research in Salt Lake City, Utah and Providence, Rhode Island. More information is available at www.cyberkineticsinc.com .

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