The Carlyle Group Expands Healthcare Venture and Growth Team to West Coast

San Francisco – Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group today announced it has expanded its venture and growth healthcare team to the San Francisco Bay Area to better capitalize on the large number of early stage medical device companies on the West Coast. Ryan A. Harris, Principal, and Rachel L. Winokur, Vice President, have relocated from Carlyle’s New York and Washington, DC offices, respectively, and will make investments out of Carlyle’s new $605 million venture and growth fund.

“We invest in medical device companies that enhance the quality of people’s lives, from improving vision to heart care to treating obesity,” said Robert E. Grady, Carlyle Managing Director and co-head of the firm’s U.S. Venture and Growth Capital funds. “Ryan and Rachel’s relocation to the Bay Area, where there is a wealth of device innovation, will enable them to apply their expertise and provide hands-on assistance to West Coast companies with exceptional growth potential.”

“We’re pleased to announce this logical expansion for our healthcare practice,” said Ryan M. Schwarz, Carlyle Managing Director and Head of the Venture and Growth Capital healthcare investing practice in the U.S. “More than half of our medical device investments to date have been in West Coast companies. Our four-person team, with financial, medical, operational and sourcing expertise, is now better positioned to identify and invest in medical device companies across the U.S.”

Since joining Carlyle in 2002 from the West Coast Healthcare Practice of McKinsey & Co., where he worked with a variety of biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, Dr. Harris has worked in Carlyle’s healthcare buyout group in New York and joined the Venture and Growth Capital Group full-time in 2007. He participated in Carlyle buyout investments in MedPointe (sold to Meda, Inc.), Qualicaps, MultiPlan, Connecticare, and Align Technologies. He has been instrumental in assisting successful medical technology companies in the Carlyle Venture Partners portfolio such as NeoVista, Proteus Biomedical, Transport Pharmaceuticals, and AqueSys. Dr. Harris is a graduate of Stanford University and of the University of California, San Francisco Medical School.

Ms. Winokur, who joined Carlyle in 2007 as a Vice President, was previously a Corporate Officer and the Vice President of Business Development at Datascope Corp., a publicly traded medical device company focused on cardiovascular medicine and critical care. Ms. Winokur led Datascope’s mergers and acquisitions effort, where she completed various transactions with companies including Johnson & Johnson, Sorin Group, W.L. Gore and Merit Medical, among others. Ms Winokur worked earlier in her career as an investment banker at Goldman, Sachs & Co., was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship in the field of electrocardiology, and is a graduate of Duke University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Carlyle entered the venture capital business in 1997 with CVP I. Today, Carlyle’s Venture and Growth Capital Group manages more than $3.8 billion in nine funds operating in the United States, Europe and Asia.

In the U.S., Carlyle’s venture & growth capital funds have made a series of health care-related investments, including several in novel, industry-leading medical device technologies, including:
--AcuFocus, Inc. – Developer of a novel corneal inlay for the correction of presbyopia (age-related farsightedness); initial investment in December 2001.
--LipoSonix, Inc. – Developer of a non-invasive cosmetic procedure for the removal of excess body fat; initial investment in January 2001.
--NeoVista, Inc. – Developer of device-based therapy for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in older Americans; initial investment in May 2003.
-- PixelOptics, Inc. – Developer of novel electro-active eyeglass lenses for patients requiring both near and distance vision correction; initial investment in September 2006.
--Proteus Biomedical, Inc. – Developer of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) for the treatment of congestive heart failure (CHF); initial investment in April 2004.

Carlyle’s latest U.S. fund, CVP III, employs a multi-stage “growth equity” approach, investing in a mix of early stage venture capital, expansion stage growth capital and growth buyout transactions. The fund helps its portfolio companies expand by using Carlyle’s global platform and domain expertise in such sectors as healthcare, telecom and media, defense and aerospace, automotive and logistics, energy, technology and business services to help its companies expand internationally and grow sales.

# # #