SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Slone Partners, North America's leading executive search firm for life sciences and diagnostics companies, announces the placement of Michael Mercer at Karius, Inc. as Chief Commercial Officer. Now responsible for developing, executing, and leading the commercial business strategy, Mr. Mercer will be based at Karius' headquarters in Redwood City, California and report to CEO Mickey Kertesz Ph.D.
Karius is a precision medicine-focused life sciences company transforming infectious disease diagnostics using genomics. The Karius Test is a quantitative next-generation sequencing test that helps clinicians rapidly diagnose infectious diseases by identifying over 1,000 pathogens with a single blood draw. Because infections cause approximately 20% of all human deaths annually, Karius is on a mission to shift the paradigm of care on infectious disease diagnoses to a more broad, accurate, and rapid method to help improve outcomes. The Company is funded by Khosla Ventures, Tencent, Lightspeed, Data Collective, Innovation Endeavors, and Spectrum28.
Prior to Karius, Mr. Mercer founded Conceptus Consulting, a life sciences startup consulting firm; was President & CEO of startup Bioconfirm Laboratories, a prescription medication monitoring and pharmacogenetics laboratory; President & CEO of CSI Laboratories, a national cancer diagnostics laboratory; and Chief Commercial Officer, then Vice President & General Manager of Berkeley HeartLab (BHL), where he ran the $100 million, 325 team member cardiovascular disease management company. Mr. Mercer co-led the BHL exit to Celera, which was later acquired by Quest Diagnostics. He graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Business Administration, Economics, at Ohio University before earning an MBA, Marketing & Corporate Finance, at University of Southern California.
Says Slone Partners President Tara Kochis-Stach, "Karius is doing important work, transforming the way the world thinks about infectious disease. As Karius grows and scales globally, Michael Mercer's unique expertise in life sciences strategy, marketing, business development, partnerships, and technology will prove vital to success."
ABOUT SLONE PARTNERS
Slone Partners delivers the leaders who build amazing scientific healthcare organizations - People Are Our Science®. Since 2000, Slone Partners specializes in delivering world-class C-suite leadership, executive, and upper management talent to the most promising and established life sciences, diagnostics, precision medicine, CRO, and laboratory services companies. With coast-to-coast presence in the most active healthcare industry hubs of Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Austin, Research Triangle Park NC, and Washington DC, Slone Partners uniquely and precisely provides an array of executive search and advisory services to innovative scientific healthcare companies. To learn more about Slone Partners' value proposition and processes, visit slonepartners.com or call 888.784.3422.
ABOUT KARIUS INC.
Karius is a life sciences company focused on transforming infectious disease diagnostics with genomics, using next-generation sequencing to analyze microbial cell-free DNA. The Karius laboratory is CLIA-certified and CAP-accredited to perform high-complexity clinical laboratory testing. The company's genomics platform and clinical grade curated pathogen database deliver deep insight into the microbial landscape, providing clinicians with a comprehensive, quantitative test capable of identifying more than a thousand pathogens directly from blood. For more information, visit kariusdx.com and follow us on Twitter at @kariusdx.
SOURCE Slone Partners
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