Name: Sarah Romano
New title: CFO, Vicarious Surgical
Previous title: CFO, Entero Therapeutics
Vicarious Surgical has appointed Sarah Romano as its CFO effective April 1, the company said Thursday, filling a post that has been vacant since the robotics company’s former financial executive left in January.
Romano is joining Vicarious from Entero Therapeutics, a biotech that is developing gastrointestinal drugs. Entero entered into a reverse merger in November, which will see Journey Therapeutics’ shareholders own 99% of the combined company.
Romano resigned as Entero CFO earlier this month, positioning her to take up the same position at single-port robotics company Vicarious.
Adam Sachs, co-founder and CEO of Vicarious, said in a statement that Romano’s “exceptional financial strategy acumen makes her an invaluable asset to our company and the ideal partner to lead our finance organization.” Vicarious highlighted Romano's record of value creation in public companies through M&A and fundraising.
The robotic surgery company ended September with $60.9 million of cash and investments and forecast its full-year cash burn for 2024 would be around $50 million. Vicarious will publish its full-year results Monday.
Romano's appointment ends a CFO search that began when William Kelly gave notice in December. Kelly is now CFO of Spectrawave, a medical imaging company that raised a $50 million round led by Johnson & Johnson in September.
Kelly’s exit came shortly before John Mazzola, chief operating officer at Vicarious, said he will retire effective April 1.
On a November earnings call, Sachs said Vicarious was weeks from the integration of its V1.0 system and planned to perform informal assessments related to durability, biocompatibility and electromagnetic and environmental compatibility in early 2025. The goal was to treat the first patient within one year of completing performance and safety tests.
Vicarious is targeting hernia repair as its first indication in the belief that it’s a good fit for its single-port robotics system. Intuitive Surgical’s market-leading da Vinci system uses a multiport design. Sachs said the single-port design can “streamline procedures and increase surgical throughput.”
