SEATTLE, May 15, 2018 – Immunexpress, Inc. today announced the appointment of three new members to its Board of Directors. Rolland Carlson, PhD, Tanja Dowe and Katleen Verleysen, PhD, have joined the company’s board, while Bea Arnold, PhD, has stepped down from the board after a three-year tenure.
Dr. Carlson brings over 25 years of global commercial, business development, new product development and general management experience in biotechnology. He has held leadership positions at various highly successful diagnostics companies, including WaferGen Biosystems, and Asuragen, Inc., where he was President and CEO. Prior to that, he served for many years at Abbott Laboratories and Vysis, Inc. He was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Immunexpress in April 2018.
“These three board appointments, in addition to Rollie’s role as our new CEO, strengthen the Immunexpress board and underscore a new sense of purpose and energy in management,” said Robert Lilley, Chairman of the Board of Immunexpress. “The Immunexpress board now represents decades of world-class diagnostic industry experience.” Lilley continued, “Additionally, I thank Dr. Arnold for her significant contributions to the board over the past years.”
The new directors strengthen an already experienced board in healthcare/diagnostics at Immunexpress: Greg Brown, MBA, a medical device and IVD diagnostics executive with leadership experience at Baxter Diagnostics, Roche Molecular Systems and Digene Corporation; Laurie Hammond, PhD, a successful start-up investor and director of inQbator in Australia; and Tom Gibbs, PhD, previously on the management teams of the startups Covalys and Med Discovery and now with Debiopharm a strategic fund investor in Biocartis, Agendia amongst other companies.
Mr. Lilley continued, “The breadth, depth and diversity of talent and experience among the Immunexpress leadership will unquestionably facilitate the next phase of the company’s strategic journey. The development and commercialization of our ground-breaking SeptiCyte™ technology, an advanced sepsis diagnostic tool, will rely heavily on the strength and expertise of our team at all levels.”
Ms. Dowe currently serves as the CEO of Debiopharm Innovation Fund, the strategic corporate fund of Debiopharm Group. From 2002 to 2016, she served in positions of increasing responsibility at Innomedica, with a track of strategy & transaction consulting work with over 80 companies worldwide, including ultimately as Managing Partner. Ms. Dowe also serves on the boards of GenePOC as the chair, Kaiku Health and formerly BC Platforms.
Dr. Verleysen currently serves as the CEO of CellSeeQ. Dr. Verleysen worked for Pronota in a variety of leadership roles from 2005 to 2014, including as Vice President of Operations and Technology, COO and CEO. Dr. Verleysen held various other CEO positions and board seats and completed multiple rounds of funding for various companies. She was also one of the founding scientists and Group Leader of the Analytical Department at U.S.-based biotech company Serenex, which was acquired by Pfizer in 2008. Dr. Verleysen served on the board of the Center for Medical Innovation, a healthcare initiative funded by the Flemish government, and previously served as the chair of the board of PharmaFluidics.
“Tanja’s and Katleen’s experience, wisdom and exceptional counsel will be invaluable to Immunexpress as we become a major global commercial-stage diagnostic company in the years ahead,” said Rolland D. Carlson, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Immunexpress. “As we commercialize the SeptiCyte™ technology on the Biocartis Idylla™ platform, I look forward to leveraging the deep commercial, operational and financial insights of the entire board to help us build a world-class healthcare company.”
About Immunexpress
Immunexpress is a Seattle-based molecular diagnostic company committed to improving outcomes for patients suspected of sepsis. Immunexpress’ SeptiCyte™ technology rapidly quantifies, directly from whole blood, specific molecular markers from the patient’s own immune system – the ‘host response’. SeptiCyte™ LAB, recently cleared by the FDA, is the first of its kind in using the host immune system to differentiate systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and sepsis. Detecting the host’s response to infection has the potential to differentiate infection earlier, faster and more accurately than finding the invading pathogen because it is independent of whether or not the pathogen is present in the sample. Immunexpress’ pipeline includes several sample-to-answer assays for near patient testing.
For more information visit http://www.immunexpress.com/.
Follow Immunexpress on Twitter and LinkedIn.
###
