Leonard Pinchuk

Biography

Len Pinchuk is a serial inventor and entrepreneur with 118 issued U.S. patents, 80 publications and 10 companies that he co-founded. His major accomplishments include the invention or co-invention of the world’s most-used angioplasty balloon catheters, the helical wire stent, the modular stent-graft, a drug-eluting stent (TAXUS®), several biomaterials (polycarbonate urethanes and poly(styrene-block-isobutylene-block-styrene)), a novel glaucoma shunt (InnFocus MicroShunt®) and the next-generation intraocular lens material. He received a BS in chemistry from McGill University (1976), a PhD interdisciplinary in engineering and chemistry from the University of Miami (1984) and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from McGill University (2005).  He was inducted into AIMBE in 2007, the National Academy of Engineering in 2012 and is the recipient of the 2017 Society for Biomaterials’ Technology, Innovation and Development award. Pinchuk began his career in 1983 at Cordis Corporation and left in 1987 to co-found Corvita Corporation (angioplasty catheters, stents, stent-grafts), which went public in 1994, was acquired by Pfizer, Inc. (1996) and was then sold to Boston Scientific (1998).  Pinchuk founded Innovia LLC (2002), which incubated eight new companies working in the fields of intraocular lenses, glaucoma shunts, radiation oncology catheters, urinary catheters and futuristic biomaterials. His current company, InnFocus, Inc., which has developed a novel treatment for glaucoma, was acquired by Santen Corporation in May 2016; he will serve as CSO for the next three years. Pinchuk also enjoys an appointment as research professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Miami.

Research Interest

Biomedical Engineering