Free Declaration - District Court of Delaware - Delaware

Case 1:08-cv-OOO91-Gl\/IS Document 17 Filed O4/O4/2008 Page 1 of 3
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE
)
EDWARDS LIFESCIENCES AG and )
EDWARDS LIFESCIENCES, LLC, ) C.A. No. 08-091-GMS
)
Plaintiffs, )
l
vs. )
)
COREVALVE, INC., )
l
Defendant. )
l
DECLARATION OF ROBRECHT LEOPOLD WILLEM MICHIELS
IN SUPPORT OF COREVALIHE, INCRS MOTION
TO TRANSFER VENUE PURSUANT TO 28 U.S.C. § 1404(zi)
I, Robrecht Leopold Willem Michiels, hereby declare as follows:
l. I am President and Chief Operating Officer of CoreValve Inc. based at l Jenner,
Suite 100, Irvine, California. I have personal knowledge of the matters set forth herein and, if I
am called upon to testify, I could and would testify competently thereto.
2. I have been President and Chief Operating Officer of CoreValve Inc.
("CoreValve") since September, 2004. CoreValve’s business was founded in 2001 to develop a
new kind of bioprosthetic heart valve. The heart valve system of which that heart valve forms
part is the ReValving® System accused in this lawsuit.
3. Although CoreValve is incorporated in the State of Delaware, all of the
eompany’s operations are based at a single campus in Irvine, in Orange County, California.
CoreValve has no offices, facilities, documents or employees in Delaware. CoreValve has its
offices, laboratories, and rnanufacturing facility at the Irvine location and all ofits employees are
based there. Corel/alve chose this location because, over the years, the Orange County area has
developed as a nationally recognized center for the medical specialty device industry and has
resident expertise and a specialized labor force trained and accustomed to the exacting and
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Case 1:08-cv-OOO91-Gl\/IS Document 17 Filed O4/O4/2008 Page 2 of 3
detailed work involved in constructing medical devices such as Corevalve’s heart valve.
4. The Plaintiff, Edwards LLC, is also based in lrvine. Eclwards’ and CoreValve’s
headquarters are within fifteen miles of Santa Ana, where the courthouse for the Southern
Division ofthe United States District Court for the Central District of California is located,
5. CoreValv°s design of the ReValving System began in Paris, France, and was
then continued and completed in Irvine. CoreValve manufactures the ReValving System entirely
at its Irvine facilities. CoreValve does not presently use, sell, offer for sale or distribute the
R.eValving System within the United States because the product has not yet received FDA
approvalr Core`V`alve is gathering data from clinical evaluations being conducted in Europe,
Latin America and Canada and the ReValving System is shipped directly to those locations for
use only in these clinical evaluations CoreValve attends the worldwide 'l`ra.ns~Catbeter
Therapeutic conference (TCT) held every year in the fall in Washington, DC, which is attended
by specialty physicians (primarily interventional cardiologists) from all over the worid. The
ReValving System has been exhibited at this conference but with prominent signage stating that
it is not available in the United States.
6. At present the ReValving System is CoreValve’s sole product, CoreValve would
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the United States. In order to survive and conduct its business Corel/alve would have to lay off
rnost of its specialized workforce in Irvine of some 50 employees, and relocate outside of the
United States.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the
foregoing is true and correct.
Executed tl1is;*>i»l”'day of March, 'ne, California,
By: y u
Rob Michiels I
. - 2 ~

Case 1:08-cv-OOO91-GIVIS Document 17 Filed O4/O4/2008 Page 3 of 3
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that on April 4, 2008, I caused to be served by electronic service and
hand delivery the foregoing document and electronically tiled the same with the Clerk of Court
using CM/ECE which will send notification of such tiling(s) to the following:
Jack B. Blumenfeld
Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Turuieil, LLP
l20l North Market Street
RO, Box 1347
Wilmington, DE 19899
I hereby certify that on April 4, 2008, the foregoing document was sent via Federal
Express to the following non»registered participants:
John Er Nathan
Michael Beck
Paul, Weiss, Riikind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP
1285 Avenue ofthe Americas
New York, NY 10019
Chad M. Shandler (#3796)
[email protected]
stri-2262529-2

Case 1:08-cv-00091-GMS

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