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PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — AirXpanders Inc., a company developing novel technology for women undergoing tissue expansion for breast reconstruction following a mastectomy, today announced three key new hires as it prepares for a decision from the FDA in 2016. Following the filing of its de novo application with the FDA in November, the company appointed Anthony Carnemolla as vice president of U.S. sales, Jennie Kim as senior director of global marketing and Gary Jones as director of customer fulfilment.

“This has been a truly monumental year for AirXpanders, with our IPO and successful commercial launch in Australia, as well as the release of our positive XPAND trial data here in the U.S., and our FDA submission,” said Scott Dodson, AirXpanders president and CEO. “We are thrilled to expand our team with these key hires that are critical to the company’s future success, and reaching our goal of making needle-free, patient-controlled tissue expansion an option for more women undergoing reconstruction following breast cancer.”

Anthony Carnemolla most recently served at Invuity Corporation, where he drove revenue growth of over 400 percent for the company’s lighted retractor product offering. He has more than 24 years of experience leading sales teams at companies such as Invuity, Volcano Corporation, Inamed (Allergan), Steris and Johnson & Johnson. His track record of building, motivating and developing sales organizations to deliver best in class results in a highly competitive surgical environment will be invaluable to AirXpanders as the company looks to launch into the U.S. market.

Jennie Kim brings 15 years of experience in healthcare marketing and public relations to her new role as senior director of global marketing. Prior to joining AirXpanders, Jennie held a number of leadership roles in marketing and public affairs at Abbott Vascular. In her most recent role at Abbott, she led global branding and positioning efforts for Absorb, the world’s first fully bioresorbable coronary scaffold. Jennie’s extensive healthcare experience, including in women’s reproductive health, as well as her work with patient advocacy groups, will be a key asset to the successful commercialization of AirXpanders’ AeroForm needle-free, patient controlled tissue expander.

Gary Jones joins AirXpanders to manage the company’s customer service efforts and sales analytics. He will be overseeing the implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to help AirXpanders input and track orders on a much larger scale. Gary has built and led customer service organizations for over 35 years, lending his expertise to seven medical device start-ups, all of which went on to achieve commercial success. His keen ability to work across different regions of the world to insure that customers are satisfied and patients are treated effectively will be vital as AirXpanders continues to serve both the U.S. and Australian markets.

After just three months of availability on the Australian market, AeroForm has already achieved over 10 percent market share and the company has trained approximately 70 plastic surgeons who conduct breast reconstruction procedures. Fourth quarter numbers are trending well above this rate. In addition to the progress being made in Australia, AirXpanders recently announced significant U.S. clinical trial results, which formed the basis of its de novo application. The data were presented to a standing room only crowd at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Meeting in October, and received the top presentation award from conference organizers.

About AirXpanders

AirXpanders Inc. (www.airxpanders.com) is a tissue expansion company focused on the area of breast reconstruction. By employing a revolutionary patient-controlled expander, activated by a wireless remote control, the often painful process of reclaiming one’s body after cancer can potentially be eased with this needle-free technology. This technology is easy to use and may enable the patient to proceed to a permanent implant much faster than the current standard of care. AirXpanders is a publicly listed company on the Australian Stock Exchange under the symbol AXP and is backed by Vivo Ventures, GBS Venture Partners, Prolog Ventures, Heron Capital, Shalon Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Western Technology Investments and a number of leading investment firms in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. AirXpanders devices are not cleared or approved for use in the United States and are considered for investigational use only. AirXpanders is cleared for commercialization in Europe and in Australia.