Dr. Stefano Stuard, MD, PhD
Senior Vice President, Global Clinical Officer Hemodiafiltration

Dr. Stefano Stuard joined Fresenius Medical Care in 2010 as a Medical Director in FME’s NephroCare business in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. Dr. Stuard’s career includes more than 14 years in clinical governance roles with Fresenius Medical Care’s EMEA and Latin America regions. In his most recent role, he supported NephroCare medical leadership in his role as Chief Clinical Officer for the EMEA countries. Dr. Stuard has long been a champion of online hemodiafiltration as a kidney replacement therapy, overseeing its steady growth in NephroCare clinics. By June 2024, more than 60 percent of patients in our European Union clinics were treated by High-Volume Hemodiafiltration. In his current role, Dr. Stuard is focused on educating nephrologists in FME’s Care Delivery business segment and will support many of the aspects of our development of a comprehensive plan to make HDF therapy a standard of care. Dr. Stuard previously served as vice president and head of the EMEA Center of Excellence for Clinical and Therapeutic Governance and as a director/consultant for nephrology and dialysis departments in Italian public and private hospitals.

Dr. Stuard received his PhD in nephrology from the University of Bologna (Italy). He received his Doctor of Medicine and Surgery as well as a post-graduate specialization in nephrology, magna cum laude, from the University of Chieti (Italy). Before joining Fresenius Medical Care in September 2010, Dr. Stuard held the position of Chief of Nephrology and Dialysis Departments in Italian Public and Private Hospitals. Dr. Stuard has authored and co-authored more than 160 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and holds multiple patents in the field of kidney replacement therapy. He is an awardee of the European Society of Artificial Organs for his contribution to the field of artificial organs.

 

Dr. Michael Anger
Senior Vice president
Medical Officer, In Center Home Dialysis
Medical Officer, Quality & Regulatory
Global Medical Office

Dr. Anger is the Medical Officer for In-Center Dialysis and the Medical Officer for Quality & Regulatory. His medical training and internal medicine residency were completed at Hahnemann University, and his adult and pediatric nephrology fellowships took place at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Fellow of the American Society of Nephrology, and member of the honor medical society, Alpha Omega Alpha. Prior to joining the Global Medical Office at Fresenius Medical Care, Dr. Anger had been the Chief Medical Officer of American Renal Associates as well as president and senior partner of Western Nephrology in Denver, Colorado, where he also led the research and interventional nephrology divisions.

 

Dr. Dinesh Chatoth
Chief Clinical Officer
Chair, Pharmaceutical & Therapeutics Committee
Fresenius Kidney Care

Dr. Chatoth is the Chief Clinical Officer of Fresenius Kidney Care and serves as Chair of the Pharmaceutical & Therapeutics Committee. He is the former president and Chief Exective Officer of Georgia Nephrology, a 16-member physician practice in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Chatoth has also served in different leadership roles at the Gwinnett Health System in Georgia, including serving as the Chair of the Department of Medicine. He is also the former Co-Chair of the East Division Medical Advisory Board for Fresenius Medical Care. He has worked with the K-DOQI workgroup for Peritoneal Dialysis and currently serves as a member of the PDOPPS US Advisory Workgroup. He has a keen interest in promoting home dialysis as a modality of choice for patients requiring renal replacement therapy and oversees home therapy initiatives for the Global Medical Office.

 

Dr. Rainer Himmele
Senior Vice President, Global Medical Information & Education
Global Medical Office

Dr. Himmele obtained his clinical training at the University Children’s Hospital, Division of Pediatric Nephrology in Heidelberg and received his medical education from the Universities of Heidelberg, Vienna, New York, and Zurich. He completed a research doctorate in Molecular Genome Analysis at the German Cancer Research Center and holds a Master of Science degree in Healthcare Management from the University of Heidelberg and Mannheim Business School.

Dr. Himmele has 25 years of nephrology experience in the U.S. and Europe and is passionate about providing concise medical information, clinical best practice education, and the development of innovative healthcare products that result in meaningful improvements in patient care.

 

Dr. Benjamin E. Hippen
Global Head of Clinical Affairs, Global Medical Office
Chief Medical Officer, Care Delivery

Dr. Hippen oversees the global clinical care delivery programs for Fresenius Medical Care, ensuring we deliver exceptional care and support to all patients under our care. Dr. Hippen specializes in ethical, organizational, and public policy issues in nephrology and transplantation. His contributions have advanced patient care initiatives and influenced broader clinical leadership, integrating transplantation into the dialogue among practicing nephrologists and within our Care Delivery framework.

Dr. Hippen received an undergraduate degree from Rice University and completed his medical school and internal medicine residency training at the Baylor College of Medicine. Thereafter, he completed a general nephrology and transplant nephrology fellowship at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. After completing his nephrology and transplant training, Dr. Hippen joined Metrolina Nephrology Associates, P.A. in Charlotte, North Carolina, a 40-nephrologist private practice, where he served as the medical director of two in-center hemodialysis facilities and, for several years, served as the medical director of a home therapies facility. During his time in Charlotte, he became a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Prior to joining Fresenius Medical Care in September 2021, Dr. Hippen served terms on the Ethics Committee and Membership and Professional Standards Committees of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, served on the Board of Directors and was the chair of the Medical Advisory Board of ESRD Network 6, and served on the founding physician practice board of InterWell Health. Consonant with his ongoing research interests in ethical, organizational, and public policy issues in nephrology and transplantation, Dr. Hippen is the author of more than 70 peer-reviewed articles, essays, reviews, and book chapters.

 

Dr. Robert J. Kossmann
Global Head of Medical Affairs, Global Medical Office
Chief Medical Officer, Care Enablement

Dr. Kossmann served as executive vice president and chief medical officer for FME North America from 2019 to 2021 and chief medical officer for FME’s Renal Therapies Group, the company’s medical equipment and renal pharmaceuticals division, from 2014 to 2019.

Dr. Kossmann has held a variety of leadership roles where he has provided guidance to the nephrology field, including as former president of the Renal Physicians Association (RPA); a founding member of RPA’s Nephrology Coverage Advocacy Program (now Policy Advocacy Leadership program); a nephrology advisor to the American Medical Association’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee; and founder of the New Mexico Renal Disease Collaborative Group.

A practicing nephrologist for two decades, Dr. Kossmann trained in nephrology at the University of Washington in Seattle and holds his bachelor’s and Doctor of Medicine degrees from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

 

Len Usvyat, PhD
Senior Vice President
Head of Renal Research Institute

Len supports advanced analytics and data-driven functions within FME to advance the Global Medical Office agenda and support the Care Delivery and Care Enablement organizations. These functions include real-world evidence generation activities as well as applied data science efforts across various parts of the enterprise. Len’s team supports these functions through data analytics and data engineering, research and publications, as well as project management and administrative efforts. The team integrates advanced analytics into the clinical care of people with kidney disease, supports generation of clinical evidence to meet regulatory requirements and post-market surveillance of the FME products portfolio, uses real-world data to examine the clinical and cost-effectiveness of FME products, and generates insights that can be used in improving care of people with kidney disease worldwide.

Len chairs FME’s Predictive Analytics Steering Committee, co-leads Global Advanced Analytics Alignment days, serves on the Steering Committee for the Apollo database, and works closely with the global MONitoring Dialysis Outcomes (MONDO) initiative, an international consortium of dialysis providers.

Len has published more than 100 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.

 

Franklin W. Maddux, MD, FACP
Global Chief Medical Officer, Member of the Management Board

Franklin W. Maddux oversees the delivery of high-quality, value-based care for the world’s most expansive kidney care organization. His distinguished career encompasses more than three decades of experience as a physician, expert nephrologist, technology entrepreneur, and healthcare executive.

Dr. Maddux joined Fresenius Medical Care’s (FME) North America region in 2009 after the company acquired Health IT Services Group, a leading electronic health record (EHR) software company, which he founded. He developed one of the first laboratory electronic data interchange programs for the U.S. dialysis industry and later created one of the first web-based EHR solutions, now marketed under Acumen Physician Solutions.

He previously served as chief medical officer and senior vice president for Specialty Care Services Group and is the former president of Virginia’s Danville Urologic Clinic, where he was a practicing nephrologist for nearly two decades. His writings have appeared in leading medical journals, and his pioneering healthcare information technology innovations are part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.

An alumnus of Vanderbilt University, Dr. Maddux earned his medical degree from the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he holds a faculty appointment as clinical associate professor.