Management Team

Joshua Makower, M.D.
Dr. Makower is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of ExploraMed II, Inc., a medical device incubator based on the west coast and is also a Venture Partner with New Enterprise Associates. 

Dr. Makower serves as a Consulting Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School and is Director of Stanford’s Biodesign Innovation Program.

Prior to this, he was Founder, Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of TransVascular, Inc. a company focused on the development of a completely catheter-based coronary bypass technology, which was acquired by Medtronic, Inc. in 2003, and Founder and Chairman of EndoMatrix, Inc., a company focused on the development of a novel therapy for incontinence and GI Reflux, which was acquired by C.R. Bard in 1997. 

Up until 1995, Dr. Makower was Founder and Manager of Pfizer’s Strategic Innovation Group, a group chartered to create new medical device technologies and businesses for Pfizer’s medical devices businesses. 

Dr. Makower holds over four dozen patents for various medical devices in the fields of Cardiology, General Surgery, Drug Delivery and Urology. Dr. Makower holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from Columbia University, a Doctor of Medicine degree from the New York University School of Medicine, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Dr. Makower also serves as Chairman of the Board for Acclarent, Inc. - a venture backed company focused on the treatment of ENT disorders, and NeoTract, Inc. – ExploraMed’s most recent spin out, and on the Board of Directors for Intrinsic Therapeutics, Inc. - a venture backed private company developing innovative spinal therapies, and ReVance, Inc. – a venture backed private company developing new molecular carriers to transport therapeutic substances across membranes


Earl Bright – General Counsel and Vice President, Intellectual Property
Mr. Bright began supporting Exploramed in December 2005 bringing over 12 years of experience as a business advisor and patent attorney, the last 7 focused specifically in the medical device field.  Previously he was the Director of Intellectual Property West Coast Operations at Guidant Corp.  There he established the legal department for a newly formed division and directed a 9 member team in the strategic development of over 1300 patent and trademark applications related to biologic, polymer, endovascular, endoscopic, nitinol and surgical technologies. He participated in weekly business development analysts meetings and negotiated intellectual property licenses and acquisition, consulting, settlement, terms sheets and definitive agreements related to equity investments and acquisitions.

Mr. Bright began his career as a Design Engineer for the F-16, F-22 and A-12 aircraft. He holds M.B.A.s from Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, and a Juris Doctorate and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.