PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Theranos, Inc. announced today that engineering and biomedical device design experts have joined the company’s newly created Technology Advisory Board (TAB), a counterpart to the Science and Medical Advisory Board formed last year.
Dr. Channing Robertson and Howie Rosen will co-lead the board of academics, executives and entrepreneurs. Four of them are members of the National Academy of Engineering, a part of the National Academy of Sciences.
The eight-member TAB has had full access to Theranos’ proprietary technologies, associated data and team members. The board will work alongside Theranos’ leadership and internal research and development teams in various areas, including advising the company on peer-reviewed publication submissions and on presentations at scientific meetings.
“We are pleased to have the opportunity to convene these leaders in engineering from academia and industry,” Robertson said. “They share our belief in the potential for the miniLab, and we look forward to leveraging their expertise as the company works towards bringing the miniLab to primary care settings.”
The TAB’s mandate encompasses:
- Reviewing specific Theranos technology initiatives associated with product development, design and deployment.
- Interacting directly with Theranos technology and product development teams.
- Sharing Theranos’ technologies through peer review publications and presentations.
- Evaluating target markets for relevance to Theranos’ technologies.
- Proposing and assessing new technologies related to Theranos’ core business.
Robertson, a professor emeritus at Stanford University, said TAB members joined the board after examining the miniLab and meeting with Theranos researchers, engineers and scientists.
Rosen, a business executive and independent consultant, said those interested in the TAB were given complete access to volumes of data. “The miniLab platform has tremendous promise, as demonstrated by the device architecture and data presented at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry last year. The TAB is looking forward to working with the company on its technologies and product development efforts,” Rosen said.
The TAB members are:
- Dr. Channing Robertson, the Ruth G. and William K. Bowes Professor (Emeritus) in the School of Engineering, Stanford University. He served as chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering and as senior associate dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the School of Engineering. He is a Founding Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
- Howie Rosen, CEO of AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative sublingual therapies. He is a lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, and a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Formerly, he was President of ALZA Corporation, a member of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
- Dr. Harvey Blanch, Merck professor (Emeritus) of Biochemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served as chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering. He also is a senior faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is also a Founding Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
- Dr. John Moalli, acting head of product at Theranos, and a Principal at Exponent. Dr. Moalli is a materials scientist, and consults with companies on issues related to product design and development, failure analysis, reliability and intellectual property. Dr. Moalli also is an award-winning lecturer at Stanford University.
- Dr. Allen Northrup, co-founder of Cepheid, a leading molecular diagnostics company, former Principal Engineer Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and co-founder of Microfluidic Systems. Currently he is co-founder and CEO of MIODx, a pioneer in molecular diagnostics and biomarker discovery. He leads the company’s commercialization of technologies from the San Francisco VA Medical Center and immuno-sequencing-based diagnostics for cancer and infectious diseases from the University of California - San Francisco Medical Center. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
- Clint Ostrander, former CEO and president of Kozio Inc., which provides in-system diagnostics and functional test software for electronic products. He worked as a scientific medical researcher at Stanford University and was founder and CEO of Trace Analytical, where he developed and patented the company’s core technology, reduction gas detection.
- Dr. Norbert Pelc, Professor of Bioengineering and Radiology and Chair of Bioengineering at Stanford University. He served on the first National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the NIH, and is a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and SPIE. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
- Dr. Mark Prausnitz, Regents’ Professor and J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology with an adjunct faculty appointment at Emory University School of Medicine. He has co-founded and served on the boards of multiple companies, including Clearside Biomedical, which is developing drug therapies for ocular diseases. He has published more than 230 research articles in leading scientific journals. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
About Theranos
Founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos, Inc. is a health technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. Its proprietary miniLab platform is designed to enable earlier disease detection and intervention by facilitating low- cost small-sample collection, testing, and rapid communication of diagnostic information in distributed settings. To learn more about Theranos, visit www.theranos.com.