Dr Marc P. Bonaca is a cardiologist and vascular medicine specialist serving as Executive Director of the Colorado Prevention Center (CPC) and Director of Vascular Research and Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz, Aurora, CO, USA.
Dr Bonaca earned his medical degree from the University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT, and his master’s in public health at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. He completed his medical residency in internal medicine, cardiology fellowship and a dedicated vascular medicine fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston, MA, as well as a dedicated research fellowship at the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) Study Group, an academic research organisation of BWH and an affiliate of Harvard Medical School.
Dr Bonaca is a faculty member at BWH and Harvard Medical School and served as an investigator at the TIMI Study Group. He directed pharmacovigilance at TIMI and was an investigator on several large outcomes trials including TRA2P-TIMI 50, PEGASUS-TIMI 54, DECLARE-TIMI 58, and REAL TIMI 63B. Beyond his leadership in these trials, he initiated and developed a focus on vascular populations and outcomes including acute limb ischemia, revascularization endpoints, and amputation endpoints. He has published PAD population data and limb outcome data from TRA2P-TIMI 50, ENGAGE-TIMI 48, PEGASUS-TIMI 54, DECLARE-TIMI 58, and others. In 2018 he was the Center Director and Clinical Project Principal Investigator for the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dartmouth Hitchcock Center in the American Heart Association Strategically Focused Network for Peripheral Artery Disease. He led the Center with Mark Creager and their projects in basic, clinical, and population science led by Drs. Feinberg, Bonaca & Sabatine, and Goodney respectively led to numerous publications.
In 2018, Dr Bonaca joined the faculty at the University of Colorado as Professor of Medicine and holds the William R. Hiatt Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Research. Dr Bonaca has led several clinical trials with CPC as the lead academic research organization, including VOYAGER PAD, PREVENT HD, ASPEN and BRIGHT, and continues to lead several ongoing trials, including EVOLVE MI and the MOONRAKER programme (which includes the REDEFINE-HF, CONFIRMATION-HF and FINALITY-HF studies). Work on limb outcomes from prior trials enabled regulatory discussions for VOYAGER PAD which was the first outcomes trial in patients with PAD to lead to approval of a drug to reduce acute limb ischemia and major amputation of a vascular etiology. His clinical and research interests include improving outcomes and function in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD). He has led additional PAD-focused analyses from several data sets including IMPROVE IT, and CLEAR OUTCOMES, and was the lead investigator of the STRIDE trial and is the lead author of the STRIDE primary results manuscript evaluating semaglutide and functional outcomes in patients with claudication which was published in the Lancet simultaneously with the late breaking presentation at the 2025 American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions.
Dr. Bonaca has dedicated time in volunteering to professional societies. He was the lead topic coordinator for the ACC Vascular Sessions and the Annual Scientific Sessions meeting, he was the Chair of the Vascular Disease Council at ACC from 2021 through 2024, he was the Vice Chair and is the current Chair of the American Heart Association PAD Collaborative, and is a volunteer in the Society of Vascular Medicine. He has contributed to the design and content of vascular disease sessions at TCT and has taken part in international meetings with the BEST CLI Collaborative as well as being a co-author on related white papers.
Dr Bonaca’s research focuses on ischaemic risk with atherosclerotic vascular disease, risk prediction and risk modification using pharmacologic and biologic therapies. He has extensive experience designing and conducting large, multicentre randomised clinical trials, as well as analysing registries and real-world datasets. His areas of interest include PAD, peripheral vascular disease and diabetes, with a focus on the breadth of risk including ischemic limb outcomes, microvascular complications, and major adverse cardiovascular events. Dr Bonaca is also investigating the cardiac, vascular and thrombotic complications associated with novel oncologic therapies. At CPC, he has focused on building a robust faculty and operational group dedicated to high quality, efficient trials leveraging health networks, informatics and decentralised design.