Patti White
Chief Executive Officer
Patti White’s career has focused on finding and building solutions that make a difference in people's lives. She started out as a pioneer in personal computers and then moved to medical where she has commercialized medical technology, established global distribution channels, created strategic partnerships, and built new companies.
Patti co-founded Inovise Medical and served as its CEO from 1997 to 2009. Inovise Medical is the recognized world leader in heart sound technology used for both diagnosis and treatment assessment. Inovise also created and licensed superior ECG algorithms and invented a low cost patient monitor for developing countries that had high impact and was a commercial success. As CEO, Patti raised over $70 million in grant, angel, venture and corporate funding. Patti also served as Chief Commercial Officer of Brien Holden Vision Diagnostics, a social enterprise start-up focused on vision diagnostics for developing countries. Previously, Patti was the VP and General Manager at RS Medical where she developed partnerships in pain trays, ultrasound, platelet rich plasma, and RF neurotomy and launched these products using the largest US pain medicine sales force. Patti’s earlier background includes a 13-year career at Hewlett Packard in marketing, R&D, and international management in medical and personal computers. Patti has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in finance and international business from the University of Washington.
Peter Galen
chief innovation officer
Peter Galen has worked in medical device companies for 30 years and released more than 50 products. He has worked as an engineer, project manager, director, VP and CEO. His experience working at all levels in the business enables him to understand the details, as well as the “big picture,” which results in successful solutions and high quality product launches.
Peter has had two successful company exits, the most recent a company focused on preventing blindness, Quantum Catch Corp. which he sold to the world’s largest optometry research group. He also co-founded CardioDigital, Inc., where he led the sale to Covidien/Medtronic.
Peter’s experience in product development and manufacturing in Asia began in the late 80s, and included setting up Welch Allyn’s R & D affiliate in Singapore for emerging companies. He also managed Hewlett Packard’s diagnostic cardiology R&D. Peter has 17 patents issued and 15 more that are pending. He serves on several boards and helps four universities with their translational activities. He has a BS in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an MS in electrical engineering with a biomedical focus from the University of Washington.
Daren Bledsoe
SR vice president engineering
Daren Bledsoe, Vice President Engineering: Daren has been an R&D development engineer, manufacturing engineer, project manager, program manager, marketing manager, director and AVP of Engineering. He has worked in medical device and semiconductor industries for over 30 years and released more than 30 products. While at Hewlett Packard's Diagnostic Cardiology Division, he led the development and product release of HP’s first transport defibrillator while cutting the end-to-end cycle by 50%. His semiconductor management experience includes more than 20 complex SOC devices, 8 platform solutions and associated firmware. Daren has had management responsibility for R&D organizations in US, Malaysia and China. His broad cross-functional experience, interpersonal skills and in depth understanding in how to set up and run complex programs using both internal resources and external partners has resulted in the successful on-time release of both medical products and complex System-on-a-Chip silicon solutions. Daren has been named as an inventor in over 40 issued patents. He earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from Washington State University.
Gerrit van Roekel
sr vice president Business Development
Gerrit J. van Roekel, MSc, MBA leads business development at Hemex Health, Inc. Gerrit joined Hemex from the Gates Foundation’s pharma and biotech industry partnering team, where he led several investments in Diagnostics and Medical Devices in Global Health settings. Gerrit has been in diagnostics innovation since his MBA at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and in business development roles at companies such as Abbott Diagnostics and Bio-Rad Laboratories. Gerrit grew up in Holland, trained as an Agricultural engineer and was introduced to development work in Africa during several UN missions in Tanzania and Kenya. He lives on Vashon Island, Washington with his family, dogs and chickens.
Brian Grimberg, PHD
CHief Scientist, Malaria
Brian Grimberg, PhD, Chief Scientist, Malaria, is an Assistant Professor of International Health, Infectious Disease and Immunology at CWRU School of Medicine, one of the country's leading global health universities. Dr. Grimberg's diverse tropical disease research portfolio takes him around the globe in pursuit of drug discovery, vaccine development, and disease eradication. He teaches about infectious diseases at the CWRU School of Medicine, and has given global health talks in 10 countries. He has worked in the field of malaria for 12 years, and in 2011 invented the original technology behind MOD. Dr. Grimberg has received grant awards supporting his global health work in multiple countries and the development of MOD malaria diagnostic technology.
Umut Gurkan, PHD
Chief Scientist, Microfabrication
Umut Gurkan, PhD, Chief Scientist, Sickle Cell Disease, holds a PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue University. He completed his postdoctoral training in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology after which he joined CWRU as Assistant Professor. Dr. Gurkan is leading the CASE Biomanufacturing and Microfabrication Laboratory (CASE-BML). The inventor of microchip electrophoresis, Dr. Gurkan has received numerous national and international recognitions and awards for developing translational POC technologies that have been clinically tested both in the developing countries and in the developed world. Dr. Gurkan will be leading field teams, recruiting patients, coordinating IRB approval, data security, and aiding in sample analysis both in the field and in the US. He has 46+ publications and 6+ national/international patent applications, and 1 issued international patent on POC testing. He co-founded a start-up company while in graduate school, and submitted numerous SBIR and STTR applications.
Prashant Khadke, PHD
VICE PRESIDENT COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, HEMEXDX
Prashant Khadke, PhD, has over 17 years of experience in business management in the fields of healthcare, clinical diagnostics, and life sciences. He was a Field Application Scientist and Business Development Manager for ThermoFischer, a Product Marketing Manager for Bio-Rad Laboratories, and National Sales Manager for Illumina where he led the team to $34M in sales. He introduced breakthrough technologies to India in a number of these roles. As an Associate Professor, he taught biotechnology courses in India.
Prashant has experience in clinical applications of next generation sequencing, sickle cell and thalassemia testing, digital PCR and real time PCR, DNA sequencing, and electrophoresis. He earned his PhD and MSc in Molecular Genetics in India, and then completed his post-doctoral fellowship on Comparative Genomics at the University of Georgia in the USA. He currently lives in Navi Mumbai.
Mohan Uttarwar
Founding Director, HemexDx
Mohan Uttarwar, is the founding director of HemexDx and a Hemex Health board member. He is the cofounder and CEO of OneCell Diagnostics and iNDx LifeCare, Inc., and a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years’ experience in successfully founding, establishing and exiting high-tech and Biotech start-ups in Silicon Valley. Mohan was the founder and CEO of OncoMDx, an innovative Cancer Diagnostics company, (acquired by Core Diagnostics, 2013). He was the founder and CEO of BioImagene, a pioneer in Digital Pathology, the co-founder and CEO of Roamware Inc., a leading wireless roaming software company, and the founder and CEO of SoftPlus, an early provider of eCRM software for global telecom carriers.
Before starting SoftPlus, Mohan co-founded and served as the CEO of Digital Tools Inc., a leader in enterprise project and resource management software. He previously held various software development and management positions with Hewlett Packard and Intel. Mohan holds a master’s degree in computer science from the Florida Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Bombay University and attended an Advanced Management Certificate Program at Stanford University.
Alireza Nasiri Avanaki
CHIEF SCIENTIST, ALGORITHMS
Alireza Nasiri Avanaki holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology and a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of British Columbia. Alireza is an expert at medical image analysis and perception with 10+ years of industrial R&D experience resulting in over 70 publications and patents.