MEET OUR TEAM

Ashish Diwan MBBS FRACS PhD is a surgeon scientist and an inventor based in south Sydney where he is the Director of Spine Service and Spine Labs at the St George Hospital Campus of the University of New South Wales.

A fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, his PhD is in the field of mechanobiology of healing. He completed an ACGME fellowship in the field of Spine and Scoliosis at the Hospital for Special Surgery, Well Medical College, Cornell University New York, NY. During this time, he received the Phillip D Wilson award, the Merrill Lynch Global Innovation award and the National Orthopaedic Surgery Fellows Foundation award for research excellence. Since then, his work in the field of spinal research has attracted numerous other awards including the prestigious ISSLS Prize for Basic Research.

His work focus on discovery and development, where there is either a gap in diagnosis or treatment of spinal degenerative disorders. He also spans another major “valley” is research, that is translation, from the bench to bedside. Ashish’s team has till now conducted five first-in-human clinical trials. His work while at HSS was critical in leading to the commercialisation of rhBMP2, which is the largest selling spinal medical device in the world.

Ashish believes that research can only be translated and scaled with the help of industry as they work in a regulatory framework that is critical to bed side use. He has hence been involved with numerous start-ups, in different stages of commercialization. A named inventor on Merunova’s patents, he is confident that the technology will be an excellent value-add for sustainable medical care to patients suffering from back pain.

Dheera Ananthakrishnan, MD, MBA is an experienced orthopaedic spine surgeon, recently retired, with over 20 years of academic practice in complex spinal deformity surgery, most recently at Emory University, Atlanta, GA. She has been voted one of Atlanta’s Top Doctors 6 out of the last 7 years.  Dheera is an entrepreneur and philanthropist and is passionate about making the world a healthier, more equitable place.

Dheera completed her Executive MBA at MIT Sloan in 2023, having previously obtained her undergraduate degree from MIT in Mechanical Engineering, and a Masters in Bioengineering from the University of Washington.  She trained in orthopaedic surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and completed fellowship training in spinal deformity surgery at the University of California San Francisco under the scoliosis giant David Bradford.  

IN 2009, Dheera co-founded Orthopaedic Link, a non-profit that orchestrates the global distribution of idle, usable surplus from a consortium of orthopaedic implant companies to provide surgeons, hospitals, and non-governmental organizations in low and middle-income countries with equipment specific to their surgical needs.  She has negotiated with medical device companies, consultancies, government alliances, and 3PL providers. Orthopaedic Link has placed more than $4 million of surplus implants and instrumentation, enabling the care of hundreds of patients who would otherwise have been deprived of care. 

Dheera actively promotes social entrepreneurship through mentoring at MIT, Emory, Georgia Tech, and Babson College.  She is currently consulting in health tech, advising and investing in startups that align with her values.  

Dheera's collaborative, holistic approach to spine care and her diverse background have led her to Merunova, where she is eager to address the systems issues related to overdiagnosis and overtreatment of low back pain.