New CEO shepherding startup's ambitious plan

A tiny medical device startup in Durham has recruited as its CEO the former head of Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that generated more than $3 billion in sales last year.

Sitting in a bright corner office last week, Todd Pope, 43, explained why he signed on to run TransEnterix, a two-year-old company with a dozen employees and the promise of taking the scalpel out of abdominal surgery. He had been on the job just a few days.

Except for the photos of himself, his wife, Lori, and their three children, the bookshelves, desk and credenza in the office were empty.

"This opportunity here is extremely unique," he said.

TransEnterix is a brainchild of Synecor, a business incubator spun out of Duke University seven years ago to turn medical device ideas into moneymakers.

Flush with $21 million in venture capital, TransEnterix could bring its first product to market in less than two years.

Pope plans to double the company's employment and find new headquarters in the next year.

TransEnterix is working on a medical device that would allow surgeons to repair hernias or remove gall bladders, ovaries or appendixes without the three to five incisions now needed for abdominal surgery. About 4 million laparoscopies are performed every year, and laparoscopy tools are projected to generate about $8 billion in sales next year.

Dr. Richard Stack, a Duke University professor emeritus and co-founder of Synecor, said he was thrilled when Pope accepted the offer to build TransEnterix into a company with global marketing and sales.

"We knew we had the right technology and a market that was huge," said Stack, who helped recruit Pope. "We just needed a global leader to take [it] the distance."

Good sign for Triangle

That TransEnterix could attract an executive like Pope is a sign the Triangle is gaining credibility as a medical device hub, said Steve Nelson, a managing director of the Wakefield Group, a venture capital firm with an office in Research Triangle Park.

"I'm excited to keep him in the area," Nelson said.

Better known as a hot bed for drug development, the Triangle has attracted several new device companies. Three were funded by Synecor, which is backed by a $142 million venture capital fund.

Statewide, the number of medical device companies rose from 86 in 1990 to 142 in 2006, according to a report by the N.C. Biotechnology Center.

The industry employs about 7,000 people statewide.

"This area is a big part of me wanting to come here and build a company," Pope said.

But leaving Cordis, which has been losing sales to competitors, taking a large pay cut and starting fresh in the Triangle was also a chance to work closer to home.

Hometown boy's path

A graduate of Millbrook High School in Raleigh and UNC-Chapel Hill, Pope left the area in 1989 to climb the ranks at Johnson & Johnson and later at Boston Scientific.

Two years ago, he first saw an opportunity to come back to the Triangle. He became chief executive of Liquidia Technologies, a UNC-CH spinoff in Durham, and moved his family to Chapel Hill. But Liquidia decided to use its technology to pursue drug delivery rather than medical devices.

Pope left within six months to work for Cordis. That job regularly took Pope to Europe and Asia.

It wasn't unusual for him to visit two continents in a week. "It was five-days-a-week travel," he said. It usually started Sunday evening with him boarding a plane to commute from his Chapel Hill home to Cordis' headquarters in New Jersey; he'd be back Friday night.

As TransEnterix's CEO, Pope can eat dinner with his family almost every night. He said he has no plans for changing his routine any time soon.

"I'm not going anywhere," Pope said. "We're calling this home."