Specific Diagnostics Announces the Appointment of Karen Koski as Chief Business Officer
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 4, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Specific Diagnostics (the "Company"), today announced the appointment of Karen Koski as Chief Business Officer, effective April 8, 2019. In this role, Ms. Koski will be responsible for the formulation and implementation of Specific's overall strategy and have oversight of the Company's finance, commercial, business development, and alliance management operations.
"I am delighted to welcome Karen to Specific as we bring the Reveal(TM) product to clinical trials in Europe and the United States in the coming months," said Paul A. Rhodes, Ph.D., Specific's Founder and CEO. "While on Wall Street she was widely recognized as among the most astute analysts in microbiology diagnostics, having covered many of the key public companies in our industry. Her accomplishments at Oxford Immunotec, culminating with her role in their $170M divestiture of an operating business unit, brought significant value to that company. Her joining us in a senior executive position is a significant confirmation that the Reveal rapid AST instrument will have a real impact on microbiology labs, and I personally look forward to her involvement."
Ms. Koski joins Specific Diagnostics from Oxford Immunotec Global PLC, a global, high-growth diagnostics company focused on developing and commercializing proprietary assays for immunology and infectious disease, where she served as Vice President, Strategy & Investor Relations. In this role, she markedly increased Oxford's outreach amongst the investment community, led several strategic initiatives across multiple functional areas, and played a central role in the sale of Oxford's U.S. laboratory services business to Quest Diagnostics.
"I am thrilled to be joining Specific at this exciting stage of the Company's life cycle," said Ms. Koski. "Despite recent advances in clinical microbiology, there remains a significant unmet need for rapid and affordable antibiotic susceptibility testing that can help improve patient outcomes and combat growing antimicrobial resistance. I look forward to working with the members of the Specific team to bring the Reveal AST system to market."
Prior to joining Oxford Immunotec in June 2017, Ms. Koski was a Director and Senior Equity Analyst at BTIG, LLC where she covered companies in the Medical Technology, Life Sciences, and Diagnostics sectors. Prior to joining BTIG, Ms. Koski worked as an Equity Research Associate at Lazard Capital Markets, where she focused on the Medical Technology sector. Earlier in her career, Ms. Koski served as a Medical Technologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass., where she completed clinical rotations in clinical hematology, clinical microbiology, clinical chemistry, and blood banking. Ms. Koski holds a B.S. in Medical Technology from the University of Vermont.
The Reveal Rapid AST System
The Reveal(TM) AST system produces antibiotic susceptibility results within an average of just 4 hours following inoculation with a positive blood culture sample or isolate dilution, enabling rapid susceptibility determination and action for time-sensitive infection. Specific's technology uses low-cost proprietary printed arrays of highly sensitive volatile-responsive indicators to rapidly detect growth of microorganisms.
About Specific Diagnostics
Specific Diagnostics has developed in vitro diagnostic systems for the detection and identification of microorganisms while they grow in culture. The company's unique patented technology leverages a low-cost printed chemical sensor array, enabling diagnostic products that simplify workflow and speed time-to-answer at low cost. During growth in culture, bacteria emit organism-specific small molecule metabolite mixtures. Specific's products utilize inexpensive printed sensor arrays to obtain a profile of such mixtures, enabling detection of growth, determination of antibiotic efficacy, and microorganism ID with simple, automated, low-cost instruments and disposables. Accuracies of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) determination meet those of gold standard broth microdilution methods, but with results obtained within an average of four hours of a positive blood culture. The Reveal assay works directly from a diluted positive blood sample, as well as with isolate dilutions. The system will streamline lab workflow, reduce costs, and substantially shorten the time from sample arrival to selection of effective therapy, saving patients faced with fast-moving and deadly drug-resistant infections. Specific is located in Mountain View, California.
For more information, visit http://www.specificdx.com, or email us at press@specificdx.com.
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