Karius Prepares for Further Growth with New Chief Financial Officer, Chief Legal Officer Appointments
New executives bring capital strategy and legal experience to Karius
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Dec. 09, 2021 – Karius, the world leader in liquid biopsy for infectious diseases, announced today the addition of two key executives to best position the company for continued growth. Bill Quirk, who most recently served as Chief Financial Officer at Freenome, is joining Karius in the same capacity, and Steve Malaska, most recently the General Counsel at Dascena, Inc., has been named its Chief Legal Officer.
Quirk’s financial experience includes extensive success raising capital on Wall Street for leading diagnostics and life sciences tools companies. He spent nearly 20 years as an award-winning analyst at RBC Capital Markets and Piper Sandler, leading the healthcare research team while going in-depth on the molecular diagnostics industry and pioneering efforts in the fledgling synthetic biology market. At Freenome, Quirk oversaw one of the largest Series C raises in the diagnostics industry.
”With increased momentum in our commercial operations, it is a great time to join this tremendous team working towards life-changing improvements to diagnosing infectious diseases,” Quirk said, “Karius has that unique combination of technology, mission, and people that set us up for long term success.”
Malaska brings more than 30 years of intellectual property, legal and management experience in the diagnostic, biotech, pharma, and technology industries to his position, including his role as co-founder and CEO of Kota Biotherapeutics. Prior to his time at Dascena, he held senior leadership and General Counsel stints at Intellectual Ventures, Ceptyr and Immunex Corp., and was a patent attorney for multinational pharmaceutical company Hoffman La-Roche.
“I am excited to join Karius at this critical juncture of the company as it builds its commercial operations for the liquid biopsy Karius TestTM and expands its industry-leading capabilities in diagnosing pathogens” Malaska said. “Karius’s technology will change outcomes in a positive way for patients impacted by a number of different diseases and I look forward to contributing my experience and expertise to those efforts.”
“The Karius team is very fortunate to have Bill and Steve joining our organization right now. Our rapid growth and expansion will benefit significantly from their experience and their leadership will help drive many of our most important decisions in the years ahead”, Alec Ford, CEO of Karius said.
The appointments conclude a strong year of achievements for Karius, which is now offering the Karius TestTM to hospitals across the country. The company received a first-in-class approval for its Karius Test for pathogen detection from the New York State Department of Health’s Clinical Laboratory Evaluation Program (CLEP), expanding access to critical infectious disease testing for patients in New York. The Karius Test is a liquid biopsy that can non-invasively and rapidly detect more than 1,000 pathogens from a single blood sample for infections located throughout the body. The Karius Test was also recently recognized as “Infectious Disease Testing Solution of the Year” at the 2021 BioTech Breakthrough Awards.
For more information, please visit kariusdx.com and follow @KariusInc on Twitter.
About Karius
Karius is a life sciences company focused on generating genomic insights for infectious diseases with a non-invasive blood test that helps clinicians make rapid treatment decisions. By mapping each patient’s microbial landscape from a single blood draw, Karius moves closer to a vision of a world where infectious disease is no longer a major threat to human health.
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