Professional Biography: Joel Batts, Senior Director of Clinical Affairs

Joel Batts was named senior director of clinical affairs for Wright Medical Technology in 2005. He is responsible for strategic planning for new product development, oversees the clinical research department budget, hosts routine face-to-face and written correspondence with the FDA, and handles recruitment and development of clinician teams. In addition, Batts is responsible for the oversight of every aspect of pre-market and post-market clinical trials for the global business.

Since he joined the Wright Medical Technology team in June 2005, he has built an inter-departmental compliance team that develops processes for clinical trial agreements and led a multi-disciplinary study team to construct and complete a critical reimbursement study, which resulted in the reversal of negative coverage decisions for a previously developed wound product. Batts conceived and implemented the EVEREST® joint replacement and lower extremity registries which provide real-time input to key corporate function.

Prior to joining Wright Medical Technology, Batts held the positions of director of regulatory affairs for Corin Group and clinical research manager for ExacTech. While at Corin, he assisted in the development and approval process of a hip-resurfacing device that was the second of its kind and was responsible for the development of the entire clinical portion of Corin’s quality system from the ground up, including monitoring, data collection, device tracking and other critical programs. At Exactech, Batts established a clinical research program for post-marketing surveillance and created surgeon research teams to develop protocols.

Throughout his career, Batts has had 11 publications in medical journals and has given presentations at the Q1 Medical Device Clinical Research Conference in Chicago and Phoenix. He is also a member of both the Advamed Task Force on Wound Policy and the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities as well as a chairman of the OSMA Task Force on FDA IDE Standards.

Batts graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Exercise Physiology from the University of Florida in 1996 and is currently working to obtain a Master’s Degree in Bioethics and Health Policy from Loyola University with graduation expected in 2013. He has been married to his wife Jennifer for 14 years and is the father of three children ages seven, nine and eleven. When he’s not working, Batts enjoys playing guitar, golfing, and studying philosophy and theology.