#WhyISHLT2022: Waleed Hassanein, MD, TransMedics
About Waleed Hassanein
Waleed Hassanein, founder, president, and CEO of TransMedics, announced in May 2025 plans to establish a second headquarters in Mirandola, Italy, describing the location as having the technical expertise and talent pool for medical device disposables. He stated that the company will build a research and development facility for next-generation perfusion systems and later transition to manufacturing clean-room production of disposable units. Hassanein said the company has been called "the Ferrari of transplant perfusion devices" and that locating in the same region as Ferrari would "make that rumor a reality." He declined to comment on politics but said the company's mission is to help patients and save lives, adding that they will find a way to overcome geopolitical challenges. In 2022, Hassanein expressed enthusiasm for the ISHLT annual meeting returning to Boston and said TransMedics looked forward to sharing results of clinical trials involving its Organ Care System heart and lung technologies, as well as a national program structure aimed at maximizing donor organ utilization. In 2017, he described the Organ Care System as a portable device that maintains organs in a living state outside the body by perfusing them with warm, oxygenated blood, contrasting it with cold storage, which he said limits organ viability to 3-6 hours. He noted that at the time, only 2-3 out of every 10 donated organs were used with cold storage, and that TransMedics had raised close to $300 million in investment and performed more than 800 successful transplants.