Assurex Health offers a medicine platform technology for clinicians to determine drugsfor patients with chronic medical conditions.
AssureRx, LLC commercializes medicine platform technology in various therapeutic areas. The company provides bioinformatics to select the drug and dose for individual patients suffering from various chronic medical conditions. Its products include genetic pharmacology service, a drug dose optimizer that is used for pediatric mental health and neuro-psychiatric patients. The companys products also include GeneSightRx, a lab-developed pharmacogenetic test, which combines genetic testing technology with a multi-variate, algorithmic, and interpretive report to help guide physicians during their decision-making process before prescribing psychiatric medications. AssureRx, LLC was founded in 2006 and is based in Maineville, Ohio.
James S. Burns has over 30 years executive experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and diagnostic fields.
He has served in leadership roles ranging from commercialization, financial, business development, and general management within businesses ranging from early-stage companies to large multinational corporations, venture capital, and private equity.
Donald R. Wright brings more than 20 years of information technology, product development, and operations experience to AssureRx. Don has served as vice president of product development at Attachmate, leading a 450 person worldwide product development organization. Don has also served as CTO for Spotlight Solutions, a leading provider of retail pricing and revenue optimization products, as well as working on the merger with ProfitLogic, which was sold to Oracle. Don also served as vice president and CIO for Domin-8 Enterprise Solutions, overseeing web-based product offerings, which grew to over six million units under management. Most recently, Don was co-founder and CTO of SaaS Capital, a specialty finance company serving the SaaS software market.
Stephen Stamp is responsible for all financial matters at Assurex Health, including financing strategy and implementation, accounting, tax, mergers & acquisitions, and government contracting.
Stephen brings to Assurex Health nearly 30 years of experience in finance, accounting, business development and operations.
He has worked in multiple public and venture-backed companies both in the US and the UK, including business to consumer (B2C), business to business (B2B), and pharmaceutical industries.
Stephen has served as Chief Financial Officer of EZCORP, Inc., a publicly-traded consumer financial services company; Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Executive Vice President Business Development at Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Dr. Bryan Dechairo joined AssureRx Health in August of 2012 as the Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs and Clinical Development. In this Role, Dr. Dechairo enables broader utilization and reimbursement of AssureRx Health technology through education of physicians and payers about the significant improvements in patient outcomes and quality of life realized by implementing GeneSight into standard care for mental illness.
Additionally, Dr. Dechairo oversees strategic investments in clinical collaborations domestically and abroad which focus on expanding the evidence of clinical utility and cost effectiveness for launched and novel products in all phase of the development pipeline.
Previous to joining Assurex Health, Dr. Dechairo was the Head of Diagnostic Reimbursement Evaluation and Extramural Research and Development for the then largest pharmacy benefits manager, Medco Health Solutions.
Prior to Medco, Dr.
John Bellano leads the AssureRx Health sales efforts to increase adoption of GeneSightRx, launch new products into the market, and lead the company’s efforts with strategic partners. Bellano brings 20 years of experience to AssureRx, most recently as senior vice president of commercial operations for GenMark diagnostics, a molecular diagnostics company, and as vice president of sales for Hologic Inc., a developer and manufacturer of women’s health care products and systems. Prior to Hologic, Bellano served as vice president of sales for Third Wave Technologies, a provider of DNA and RNA products for the clinical and research markets, where he played a key role in building market adoption that led to Third Wave’s acquisition by Hologic. Prior to Third Wave, John held various sales leadership positions with Roche Diagnostics, Sanofi Diagnostics Pasteur, Abbott Laboratories and Forest Laboratories.
Scott Roth serves as Vice President, Product Development at Assurex Health, Inc.
Scott is responsible for leading the Product Development team in building and supporting the Assurex Health product offerings and LIMS system.
Scott brings over 15 years of valuable experience in software product development to Assurex Health.
Most recently, Scott served as Software Development Manager at Domin-8 Enterprise Solutions, a Property Management software company, managing and leading a team of software developers building property management windows and web applications.
At Spotlight Solutions, Inc., as a Senior Software Developer, Scott was responsible for design and development of the corporate portal and software products.
Prior to Spotlight Solutions, Scott served as Software Developer at Attachmate Corporation, developing custom e-commerce and e-banking web applications, and custom windows application products primarily for United States Air Force and United Airlines.
Rao Mulpuri serves as the Vice President of Laboratory Operations for AssureRx Health, Inc.
In this role, Rao oversees the setup and management of multi-site laboratories for the commercial testing of GeneSight products.
Prior to joining Assurex Health, Rao served as a Director of Scientific Operations at Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) where he implemented operational and regulatory strategies to bring genomics into mainstream of healthcare and advance Personalized (Genomic) Medicine in the clinic.
Prior to CHI, Rao was the Site Head of a diagnostic and clinical testing unit of Beckman Coulter Genomics and Cogenics.
Gerry Higgins serves as Vice President, Pharmacogenomic Science for Assurex Health.
Dr. Higgins received doctorates in neuroscience and anatomy from the University of Vermont, demonstrating that amygdaloid serotonergic pathways mediate autonomic components of conditioned fear and anxiety.
While a postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at the Scripps Research Institute, he worked on the first cloning, characterization and mapping of several brain genes, including the amyloid precursor protein, myelin-associated glycoprotein, and SNAP-25.
He collaborated with researchers at UCSD to demonstrate the ability of NGF to induce neuronal plasticity in the cholinergic basal forebrain that reversed cognitive deficits in an animal model of spatial memory impairment.
While serving as a professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, he received the Mallinckrodt Scholar Award for Excellence in Science for his research on mechanisms of transcriptional regulation.
Dr.
Anthony Altar serves as the Chief Science Officer for Assurex Health, Inc. Dr. Altar received his Ph.D. degree with honors in psychology from UC Santa Barbara.
While a post-doctoral scientist and instructor at UC Irvine, he pioneered image analysis of receptor-drug binding in brain, including receptors labeled by antipsychotic drugs. As team leader at Ciba-Geigy, he identified the serotonin/dopamine receptor binding profile of atypical antipsychotics, known as the SDA concept.
His research at Genentech and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals supported clinical trials for brain-derived neurotrophic factors including BDNF in diabetic neuropathy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
His teams were first to discover BDNF effects on neuronal sprouting, metabolism, and behavior, including efficacy in depression models.
As global director for neuroscience at Otsuka, he managed the USA and Japan neuroscience teams which, with Bristol Myers Squibb, resulted in FDA approval for Abilify.
Karen serves as Vice President, Finance at Assurex Health, Inc.
She is responsible for all finance, accounting, financial operations and human resource activities.
Prior to joining Assurex Health, Inc., Karen was the Associate Vice President of Operations for EyeMed Vision Care, a managed vision care company and division of Luxottica Retail.
She was a member of the senior leadership team responsible for setting strategic direction and leadership of all healthcare operations including enrollment, claims operations, billing, payment processing, provider operations, customer care and systems planning.
Prior to that, Karen was Associate Vice President, Finance for EyeMed Vision Care.
She was a member of the senior leadership team, responsible for setting strategic direction and responsible for all accounting, finance and financial operations activities, including enrollment, claims operations, billing, payment processing and systems planning.
Ted Driscoll is a Director leading the Digital Healthcare team at Claremont Creek Ventures.
He is also a founding angel investor in the Health Tech Capital angel group and a founding director of the Sand Hill Angels.
Prior to his venture capital experience, Ted helped found five successful companies in imaging-related markets.
He was founder and CEO of Be Here Technologies, a pioneer in Internet, Broadcast and Videoconferencing technologies.
He served as a Division President and CTO of Diasonics, with responsibility for its MRI, ultrasound, digital X-ray, lithotripsy and acoustic ablation technology areas.
He had earlier directed the Diasonics technology team that developed the first commercial MRI scanners and numerous advances in MR imaging.
Previously, Ted was also Vice President of Engineering and R&D of Identix, now a world leader in fingerprint and face recognition; and Director of R&D at International Imaging Systems, an early pioneer in remote sensing.
Warren Hogarth is a venture capitalist at [Sequoia Capital](/financial-organization/sequoia-capital). Warren’s current areas of interest include cloud computing, bioinformatics and energy.
Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2008, Warren completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering, where he developed fuel cell technology. During this time, he was a visiting Fulbright Scholar to Princeton University and a Guest Scientist at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.
Warren has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Queensland.
Joel Winner is a researcher in the field of psycho-pharmacogenetics and a practicing clinical psychiatrist. Prior to joining AssureRx, Dr. Winner was part of the “Gene Team” at Mayo Clinic where he was a clinical and research fellow and conducted clinical trials with the AssureRx product, GeneSightRx. Joel received his medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center and completed a general psychiatry residency at the University of Hawaii. He scored in the top 3% of psychiatry residents on the Psychiatric Resident In-Training Exam (PRITE). Dr. Winner’s focus in both his research and clinical work has been in pharmacogenetics.
Brad Webb, PhD, is an experienced entrepreneur and investor in the biomedical and biotech companies.
Following initial positions in research and development working on designs for post-cataract surgery intraocular lenses and supervising clinical trials/FDA processes for the 3M ophthalmic division, Brad led or participated in several start-up ventures in the ophthalmic products industry.
He founded Vision Biology, Inc., which developed a revolutionary patented Viscoelastic Surgical Fluid for use during cataract surgery and later licensed to Alcon Laboratories.
Brad received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
John McIlwraith is a managing director of Allos Ventures (www.allosventures.com) and Blue Chip Venture Company, Cincinnati venture capital firms that have invested in over 120 companies over the past 15 years.
John has served on the board of directors of more than 25 of these companies including BlueGill Technologies, Blue Pillar, Inspiris, Juventas, Medhost, Nine Sigma, and Renal Solutions.
He is an active member of the Midwest entrepreneurial community, including serving as a founding board member of the Michigan Venture Capital Association.
Previously, John was senior vice president of strategic planning and general counsel of Quantum Health Resources, a public healthcare services company that provided drugs and related therapies to patients with rare, chronic diseases.
Prior to Quantum, John was a partner with the Jones Day law firm where he co-founded the firms Private Ventures practice and represented venture capital firms and early-stage technology companies.
Mike Venerable leads digital investments for CincyTech, a regional seed fund in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since 2007, CincyTech has invested in more than 20 seed/early stage technology companies in software, consumer digital, digital health care and bioscience.
Mike began his career as an entrepreneur in the 1990?s, founding and selling Talus, Inc., a data warehouse and analytics consultancy.
After the acquisition, he led the services organization for the acquirer, Sagent Technology, which went public in 1999.
Today he works with CincyTech portfolio companies on strategy, capitalization and operational issues.
He also serves as a director for ZipScene, Wearcast and Balanced Insight.
John A. Kraeutler has 40 years of experience in the biomedical industry.
John has served as both CEO and COO of Meridian, guiding its development as a leader in the field of infectious disease diagnostics.
Before joining Meridian, Mr. Kraeutler served as division Vice President, General Manager at Carter-Wallace, Inc.
Previously, he held key marketing and technical positions with Becton, Dickinson and Company and Organon, Inc.
Mr. Kraeutler is currently Vice Chairman of BIO/START, a Cincinnati-based biomedical incubator, and a member of the Ohio Third Frontier Commission.
Vice President, Payer Markets & Reimbursement at AssureRx Health