Okami Medical, a medical device maker that makes minimally invasive products to control blood flow to arteries, has appointed Drew Hykes as chief executive and president.
Hykes is the former CEO of Inari Medical Inc., which was acquired by Stryker Corp. for $4.9 billion in February, one of the largest medtech deals in the region in recent years.
“Excited to share that I’ve joined Okami Medical as CEO,” Hykes wrote in a LinkedIn post.
“Energized by the opportunity to help expand Okami’s impact on patients suffering from peripheral vascular disease.”
Hykes replaces Rhonda Robb, who Okami brought on at the beginning of last year to scale and commercialize the company’s Lobo Vascular Occlusion System.
The company did not respond to requests for comment as to why Robb stepped down.
“I really liked the idea of working for a startup company, and Okami’s technology and people were very compelling to me,” Robb previously told the Business Journal at the time of her appointment.
Taking over for Hykes at Inari is Tim Lanier, president of the Inari division at Stryker. While now a wholly owned subsidiary of Stryker, Inari’s headquarters remain in Irvine.
Experienced Medtech Leader
Prior to the deal closing, Inari was one of the fastest-growing medical device makers in Orange County since going public in 2020.
Analysts have estimated sales climbed 22% last year to $603 million and will increase another 18% this year to $712 million.
Hykes joined Inari in 2017 as chief commercial officer before becoming chief operating officer in 2020.
He took over as CEO in 2023 from Bill Hoffman, who once told analysts that Hykes “was and is now a much better public-facing CEO than I ever could have been.”
Earlier in his career Hykes served as vice president of commercial operations at Aliso Viejo-based Sequent Medical ahead of its $380 million sale to Terumo Corp. in 2016.
Sequent was spun out of Inceptus Medical, the same medical device incubator responsible for the creation of Inari.
Okami is the second portfolio company to come out of Inceptus, which was founded by Bob Rosenbluth, who has helmed several other large device makers in the area.
Rosenbluth was a founder and CEO of Sequent Medical as well as the founder of neuroendovascular medical device maker Terumo Neuro, formerly named MicroVention.
Hykes also spent more than a decade at Medtronic, one of the world’s largest medical device makers. His roles at Medtronic included vice president of marketing for atrial fibrillation solutions and director of investor relations.
$32.5M Funding Round
Okami, which counted 30 employees as of last year, is still in the early stages of commercialization.
Last year, it raised a $32.5 million funding round to support the development of its first two products, the Lobo system and the Sendero microcatheter.
Lobo stands for “low-profiled braided occluder,” and comes in four different sizes meant to be used by surgeons to obstruct or reduce the rate of blood flow to arteries during operations commonly done on patients with an embolism or aneurysm.
The Sendero microcatheter received 510(k) clearance last year and “is designed for smooth delivery of interventional while providing optimal trackability through tortuous peripheral vessels,” according to the company.
Okami in March announced that it received 510(k) clearance for a max delivery catheter, adding to its Sendero portfolio.
“With the expanded SENDERO portfolio, we can move beyond the limitations of traditional coils and vascular plugs, so we can confidently, predictably and rapidly treat our patients in a wide range of cases,” Dr. Nima Kokabi, director of interventional radiology at the University of North Carolina, said in a statement.
