Mano  Iyer

Mano is a Partner in the Sofinnova MD Start Strategy. A serial entrepreneur whose ties with Sofinnova Partners stretch back more than 15 years, he re-joined the firm in 2022.

“Sofinnova has realized something truly impressive in developing a first-class medtech ecosystem based out of Europe,” he said. “The firm is recognized globally as an influential player in the space, and I’m excited and proud to be back.”

In 2008, Mano was among the co-founders of the original MD Start team that incubated companies including CorWave and LimFlow. He also advised CoreValve, a Sofinnova Capital Strategy portfolio company, which was subsequently purchased by Medtronic for $800 million.

Mano founded ReCor Medical during his time as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Sofinnova Partners in 2009. He left Sofinnova in 2013 to work full-time as the Chief Operating Officer of ReCor, which was successfully sold to Otsuka Medical Devices in 2018.

Mano started his career in medical devices as an engineer at Arrow International. While at Arrow, he met Tim Lenihan. In 2001, he co-founded Contract Medical International (CMI) with Lenihan, and ran operations and engineering. CMI was acquired by Heraeus Group in 2020.

He joined Sofinnova Partners thanks to an introduction from Gerard Hascoët, whom he had also met while at Arrow. The trio (Hascoët, Lenihan, Iyer) joined forces with Antoine Papiernik and, with the backing of Sofinnova Partners, founded MD Start, which, now in its third iteration, has been fully integrated into the Sofinnova platform of strategies.

Mano holds an MBA from Stanford and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology.