By Sarah Briggs and Bobby Lee

One of the early practitioners of coronary angioplasty in the U.S., cardiologist Dennis Wahr, '74, now develops products that make the procedure safer and more effective. Photo by D. Trumpie

In spring 2009, Wahr’s firm, Lutonix, hopes to begin human trials with a drug-coated balloon that will imbed the drug in the blood vessel wall during an angioplasty procedure. This new approach could negate the need for using a metal stent to keep the blood vessel open and thus reduce the long-term complications sometimes associated with stents.

In late September Wahr and the Lutonix team met with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials to present the results of their pre-clinical research, the first step in the approval process required to initiate human trials. Two physician-scientists in Berlin, Germany, have published encouraging results with a drug-coated balloon and are also developing a similar product at the moment. Wahr believes the German results demonstrate that there is significant potential for success with this product concept.

"If the initial human trials go well, Lutonix will grow rapidly after that," he says.

Lutonix is actually Wahr’s second entrepreneurial venture. He founded his first company, Velocimed, in 2001, and led it through the invention, development, and marketing of several devices that make angioplasty safer and more effective. He sold Velocimed to St. Jude Medical Inc. in 2005.

His business ventures today have their roots in his early training as a physician some 30 years ago. Wahr says he was in the right place at the right time when he landed a cardiology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco after graduating from medical school at Wayne State University in 1978 and then completing a residency at the University of Michigan. UC San Francisco had a vibrant research program under way at the time, and was one of the pioneering medical centers for coronary angioplasty in the United States in the early 1980s. Wahr was among the first physicians in the country trained in what was, at the time, a revolutionary procedure for treating atherosclerosis and heart defects. On completing his fellowship, he was recruited by St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor to launch its interventional cardiology program, and he spent the next 15 years there in various capacities, including as chief of cardiology.

While advances in cardiovascular medicine were rapid during this time, Wahr often saw a need for devices that did not yet exist. Through his research, he aimed to fill those gaps.

"As innovations went forward, I was fortunate to be involved in the development process as a physician-investigator in FDA-approved clinical trials," he explains. "We had an active research program, studying and testing new medical devices. After doing that for 15 years, I had some of my own patentable ideas and decided to try and make them real."

He eventually resigned from his medical group and founded Velocimed to begin product development.

"My practice was at its peak. On the other hand, I knew that this was going to be a real adventure. I saw myself at the midway point of my career, and I thought it was time to do something else for the second half of my career. From my personal perspective, I would like to believe that I am still doing medicine. It’s just that instead of helping patients one at a time—as I was doing—I am making tools that hopefully make it possible for many physicians to deliver more effective care." Building the company, he says, was "a way of amplifying my contribution to better patient care."

So he teamed up with several venture capitalists and moved his family to Minneapolis where he found the biomedical engineers and clinical experts he needed to advance his work.

"I was 48 years old when I made the transition," he says. "It was a very big risk, but I always knew if I failed I could come back and practice medicine."

Dennis Wahr came to Albion intent on pursuing a career in medicine, and found plenty of encouragement from faculty including biology professor Ken Ballou, who at the time was coordinator of the premedical program. Despite a rigorous academic load, the biology major earned athletic honors as the league’s most valuable performer in golf as he propelled the Britons to the 1972 conference title. And he was named Briton MVP in basketball after ranking second in the league in free throw percentage and fifth in field goal percentage during the 1973-74 season. For these achievements, Wahr was inducted into Albion’s Athletic Hall of Fame at this year’s Homecoming. He also graduated magna cum laude and with Phi Beta Kappa honors.

"Dennis was the smartest guy I have ever met (to this day)," notes his former roommate and fellow physician-turned-businessman Bill Dobbins, ’74. "Not only was he smart, he was a great problem-solver. He had the tenacity to dig into whatever he did not understand and work until he understood it fully. He also had the talent to turn around and teach it to the rest of us. He singlehandedly got me through physics and for that I will be forever grateful." Dobbins remembers too that Wahr always had a competitive streak, especially evident in some fierce after-dinner pinball contests.

For his part, Wahr says competition, whether it’s in sports or in the lab, is healthy when it causes everyone to strive for peak performance.

"I get tremendous satisfaction out of this work," he reflects, "because it’s not entirely about whether you’re successful or not. Even if you personally are not successful, you will still have driven your competitors to a higher level of quality. That’s good for everybody—most importantly the patient."