SANTOSH PRABHU, PH.D., MBA

Areas of Expertise: structural heart, cardiovascular devices, cardiovascular disease, medical device research and development.

Santosh Prabhu is divisional vice president of product development for Abbott's structural heart business. In this role, he leads the development of the full structural heart product portfolio, including transcatheter valve repair and replacement, structural interventions, and surgical valves. Santosh joined Abbott's structural heart division as director of R&D in February 2014.

He has played a major role in the evolution of the MitraClip technology with the development of MitraClip NT, MitraClip NTR/XTR and MitraClip G4. He has also been responsible for taking the MitraClip technology into the tricuspid space with the development of TriClip.

Santosh started his career at Guidant Corporation in 2000 as a R&D Engineer and joined Abbott in 2006 through the acquisition of Guidant. As part of Guidant and Abbott Vascular, he held positions of increasing responsibilities within the R&D organizations. In these roles, Santosh worked on the development of several market-leading stent systems for treating coronary artery and peripheral artery diseases, including the revolutionary XIENCE family of drug-eluting stents. 

Santosh holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India; a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Alabama; and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Delaware.