Our Team

Divya is the founder and chairwoman of Kunovus Technologies. She has worked as a clinician in Sydney Children Hospital and brought her human development knowledge to help develop unique solution for disc regeneration. Her PhD was in the field of orthopaedic surgery and she also has the unique honor of being mentored by late Adele Bosky and M Bostrom during her research stints in New York.

Divya has governance training by the AICD and conceptualised and effectively ran the Special Spinal Rehab non operative division of Spine Service from 2002-14 at which point to focus on device commercialization she chose to outlicense the underlying IP. An inventor her unique strengths are in risk assessment and strategic thinking whilst providing effective human resource management service.

Shauna Jarrett is a lawyer and governance specialist.  She is an experienced senior executive and Non-Executive Director with a strong professional background in strategic design and implementation, specialising in governance across the education, legal, arts and community sectors.

Mark has a Masters in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering in Trinity College, Dublin, with a thesis focusing on the development of a novel device to treat diseased spinal discs. He graduated with a First Class Honours with Distinction.

After graduating, Mark worked in a biomedical start-up in Dublin for 2.5 years and gained valuable experience in Process Improvement, Root-Cause Analysis and Device Manufacturing.

Mark is responsible for supporting the development of the Kunovus System and accompanying device document package.

Cameron is a recent graduate with 2 year’s experience in industry. He graduated from the University of Technology Sydney with a Bachelors degree in Biomedical Engineering with First Class Honours and a Diploma in Professional Engineering Practice.

Cameron is responsible for carrying out in-house manufacturing activities, liaising with suppliers and external contacts for Kunovus.

Cameron is committed and works to the highest standards to deliver superior outcomes for Kunovus.

Esther studied biochemistry at Monash University and completed her PhD in immunology and protein chemistry at the University of Melbourne.

Esther has worked with numerous MedTech and biotech startups in a product development and QA capacity over the past 20 years and set up her own consultancy SciDoc Solutions in 2007.

In 2019, she partnered with George Loizou, to form CMS SciDoc Pty Ltd, an IVD and medical device compliance consultancy.

She is also currently scientific affairs director for Ramsey Coote Instruments and the Australian Spine Registry National Manager.

An experienced leader and entrepreneur with over 18 years experience in the medical device industry. He has held multiple management roles across many business functions including Product Development, Manufacturing and Business Development.

He brings with him years of expertise and solutions, specialising in product development and manufacturing, in particular implantable medical devices, focusing on minimally invasive procedures. He possesses a strong technical background across a broad discipline of devices and holds several international patents and pending applications.

Johnathon graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Masters in Biomedical Engineering and a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering with first class honours.

Valerie is a results-driven professional with 20+ years in regulated industry with a progressive record of achievement and success. Motivated, enthusiastic problem solver. Proven ability to cultivate and foster solid relationships to meet goals and objectives of the organization. Successfully fostering global, cross-functional collaboration to meet the demands of the business as well as global, federal and state regulatory authorities such as FDA, Health Canada, MOH, EPA, and CPSC. She is Adjunct Lecturer at Northwestern University School of Professional Studies.

Jyoti has 5+ years’ experience in management role who is highly experienced in operations and administration. Jyoti is dedicated to deliver the best outcomes when it comes to assisting the team with operational roadblocks. Ensuring there is high attention to detail whilst being process driven.

Dr Diwan is a leading spinal surgeon, forms the leadership group for the International Society for the Study of Lumbar Spine, an editorial board member for the leading spinal publication European Spine Journal and a past Merrill Lynch Global Innovation awardee. His area of research explores intervertebral disc regeneration and augmentation of the intervertebral nucleus as a means of preserving the disc function that will lead to solutions for back pain cure. He holds 12 patents in the field and has an h-index of 30 with more than 3000 citations.

He completed his spine and scoliosis fellowship from Hospital for Special Surgery, Cornell University New York NY. Better known as HSS this hospital consistently ranks as the No1 Orthopaedic Hospital in The US and globally remains a matchless institution in the field. Dr Diwan received their most prestigious award, the Phillip D Wilson award during his stay there and currently acts as one of their International Ambassadors.

He is both process and outcomes focussed not just with his surgery but also with his research and brings these skills to Kunovus the Chief Scientific Advisor. This has allowed for a concept to go through all steps required to get to clinical trials.

Dr. Cohen graduated from the University of New South Wales, and completed his neurosurgical training in Sydney and Melbourne. He then spent a year at St. Vincent’s Hospital for spinal surgery fellowship. Following training in neurosurgery and spine surgery he undertook fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery in Istanbul, Turkey, with Prof. Memet Ozek (past president of European Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery) His current interest is in minimally invasive spine surgery.

Dr Khan takes care of patients with all conditions affecting the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine including complex degenerative conditions as well as adult and pediatric advanced deformity, which is his area of interest. Prior to clinical orthopaedics and spine surgery, Dr Khan spent 4 years investigating the complexity of spine surgery by performing bench-top and clinical research at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City in the Spine Service under the tutelage of Harvinder S. Sandhu, MD and Joseph M. Lane, MD. This was followed by a 6-year residency at the University of California, Davis, working with Mark Lee, MD.

Residency was followed by a fellowship at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Thereafter Dr Khan was recruited to The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center to develop a spine service in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Dr Khan is the author of over 90 research publications, over 18 book chapters and has presented his research numerous times both nationally and internationally. He is on numerous national committees including the Biologic Implants Committee of the American Academy of Orthoapedic Surgeons (AAOS) and the North American Spine Society (NASS) Biologics Section. He is Section Editor of the Clinical Spine Surgery Journal and a member of the International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgery Research Board. He has received grant support from OREF, Scoliosis Research Society (SRS) and Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA). He is currently a member of international and national Spine Societies such as AAOS, CSRS, NASS, ISASS, LSRS and OOS.

Dr. Guy Tsafnat is an experienced entrepreneur and health informatics researchers with over 20 years of experience in AI and related technologies. Guy’s background in IT research and development is combined with experience in health services research and translational medicine to form a complimentary and set of skills not often seen in the healthcare market.

Guy received his PhD in biomedical engineering from UNSW, and has worked as a senior research fellow at leading universities in Australia. Guy helped grow ten start-ups, half of them as co-founder, both in Australia and in Silicon Valley. Guy authored over 50 peer reviewed papers. He is a co-founder of the international collaboration for the automation of systematic reviews and CEO of Spokade Pty Ltd and Evidentli Pty Ltd. As an academic, innovator and entrepreneur he brings synergistic expertise to the Kunovus board. PhD (Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW); MSc (Computer Science (machine learning), California State University); BSc (Computer Science (cum laude), California State University).

Dr. Harvinder Sandhu specializes in minimally invasive spine surgery, endoscopic spine surgery, microsurgery, computer-assisted surgery, and the study and use of spinal biologics. He completed his training in spinal surgery at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California and was subsequently Chief of the Spinal Surgery Service at UCLA until 1997. At that time, he was recruited to join the staff at Hospital for Special Surgery.

Dr. Sandhu has more than 75 peer reviewed scientific publications in areas such as biologic enhancement of spinal surgery and novel minimally invasive management of spinal disorders. He has received research awards from the North American Spine Society, the Orthopaedic Research Society, and the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine, including the prestigious Volvo Award in Spinal Research.

In addition to clinical practice, Dr. Sandhu is actively engaged in the research, development, and invention of a variety of medical devices and instruments used in spinal surgery. He holds several patents involving the diagnosis and treatment of spinal disorders. He has been closely involved with the Kunovus device development plan and has been the key champion in discussions with the FDA.

Andy is CTO at TheraCell and has more than 30 years leadership experience in the medical device industry and is an expert in orthobiologics, orthopaedics, and biomaterials with more than 30 US patents and patent applications.

Previous experience includes, founder and President of Accent Biomedical, a provider of innovation services, and CTO at Anika Therapeutics, NASDAQ listed developer of hyaluronic acid based products for orthopedics, ophthalmics and aesthetic dermatology. Former Vice President R&D and General Manager at Spine Wave Inc. a Connecticut based start up spine company. There he was responsible for development of injectable nucleus replacement and other motion preserving technologies. Andy spent over twenty years at Smith & Nephew, both in the US and UK. As Group Director of R&D at Smith & Nephew Endoscopy in Boston, USA he led 80+ engineers developing implants, RF and mechanical resection systems, fluid management systems for arthroscopy and endoscopy applications. As Program Manager for Orthopedics and Endoscopy and Head of Materials Research at Smith & Nephew's Group Research Center in York, UK he formulated and led long term research programs in orthopedics, spine and endoscopy, setting up joint ventures in tissue engineering and collaborative research programs with numerous universities.