Leonard Pinchuk is an inventor and entrepreneur in biomedical engineering, with 128 US patents and 90 publications. He has cofounded 10 companies where his major accomplishments include invention of the Nylon 12 angioplasty balloon, helical wire stent, modular stent-graft, a drug-eluting stent (TAXUS®), several biomaterials (Bionate and poly(styrene-block-isobutylene-block-styrene) [SIBS]), a novel glaucoma tube (the InnFocus MicroShunt®), and the next generation intraocular lens. He is also Distinguished Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Miami.

Dr. Pinchuk started his career at Cordis Corporation and left in 1987 to cofound Corvita Corporation (angioplasty catheters, stents, stent-grafts). Corvita was taken public (1994), acquired by Pfizer, Inc. (1996), and then sold to Boston Scientific Corporation (1998). Desiring to return to the startup setting, Dr. Pinchuk founded Innovia LLC (2002), incubating many companies in the fields of intraocular lenses, glaucoma shunts, radiation oncology, urology, gene therapy, and others. In 2016 Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. acquired his current company, InnFocus, Inc., where he is now chief scientific officer.

Dr. Pinchuk’s awards include the 2017 Society for Biomaterials Innovation and Technology Award and the 2017 BioMed SA Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience. He was inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2007 and the National Academy of Engineering in 2012.

He was born and raised in Montreal and received his BSc in chemistry from McGill University (1976), PhD (interdisciplinary) in engineering and chemistry from the University of Miami (1984), and an honorary doctor of science degree from McGill University (2005).