SALT
LAKE CITY, May 15, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sera
Prognostics Inc., The Pregnancy Company® (NASDAQ: SERA),
focused on improving maternal and neonatal health by providing
innovative pregnancy biomarker information to doctors and patients,
today announced the retirement of the Company's President and CEO,
Gregory C. Critchfield, M.D., M.S.
Dr. Critchfield is retiring after 12 years of dedicated and
valuable service to the Company. Dr. Critchfield plans to step down
from his executive role effective June 8,
2023, to pursue other activities. Zhenya Lindgardt, a member
of the Company's Board of Directors, will succeed Dr. Critchfield,
as Interim CEO & President. Kim
Kamdar, Ph.D., a member of the Board, has been appointed as
Chair of the Board. Dr. Critchfield continues his service as a
member of the Board.
"On behalf of Sera Prognostics' Board of Directors, I want to
express our deep appreciation for all that Greg has done to lead
Sera from its inception to its important role today in protecting
mothers and babies with its PreTRM® pregnancy test as
well as a pipeline of other potentially ground-breaking
pregnancy-related test products," said Dr. Kamdar. "Greg has been a
remarkable leader, and we look forward to his continued
participation as a member of the Board of Directors. We are also
grateful to Zhenya Lindgardt for her forthcoming leadership, and we
believe her significant experience in leading high-growth
organizations will, for the interim, help shape the Company's
strategy and operations in the next exciting phase in the Company's
development."
"Sera is well positioned to be a leading provider of solutions
to improve the well-being of mothers and babies with its PreTRM
test and other valuable pregnancy predictions in its robust
pipeline," said Dr. Critchfield. "With these and other
accomplishments in place after 12 years with the Company, this is
the right time in Sera's history and development for me to help
transfer the leadership of Sera into Zhenya's capable hands to
drive Sera's growth to the next level . I am excited to work with
Zhenya and the Board as we move forward."
"At this juncture, given positive AVERT data and the potential
for the PRIME data to foster additional volume growth for PreTRM, I
am excited to step into an operating leadership role in the Company
to support Sera in this next stage of bringing Sera's products to
market. With so many unmet needs of mothers and babies across the
globe, the opportunities to make an impact are tremendous," said
Zhenya Lindgardt.
Ms. Lindgardt currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of The
Commons Project Foundation, a non-profit public trust established
with support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Previously, Ms.
Lindgardt served as Vice President of Platform and Customer
Engagement of the Executive Team at Uber Technologies Inc., a
publicly traded mobility, transportation and delivery solutions
company. Prior to that role, Ms. Lindgardt served in a variety of
positions, including as a Senior Partner and Managing Director for
19 years with The Boston Consulting Group, a global consulting
company.
About Sera Prognostics, Inc.
Sera Prognostics is a leading health diagnostics company
dedicated to improving the lives of women and babies through
precision pregnancy care. Sera's mission is to provide early,
pivotal pregnancy information to improve the health of mothers and
newborns, resulting in reductions in the costs of healthcare
delivery. Sera has a robust pipeline of innovative diagnostic tests
focused on the early prediction of preterm birth risk and other
complications of pregnancy. Sera's precision medicine
PreTRM® Test reports to a physician the individualized
risk of spontaneous premature delivery in a pregnancy, enabling
earlier proactive interventions in women with higher risk. Sera
Prognostics is located in Salt Lake City, Utah.
About Preterm Birth
Preterm birth is defined as any birth before 37 weeks' gestation
and is the leading cause of illness and death in newborns. The 2022
March of Dimes Report Card shows that, for the last four
consecutive years, more than one in ten infants is born
prematurely. Prematurity is associated with a significantly
increased risk of major long-term medical complications, including
learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, chronic respiratory illness,
intellectual disability, seizures, and vision and hearing loss, and
can generate significant costs throughout the lives of affected
children. The annual health care costs to manage short- and
long-term complications of prematurity in the United States were estimated to be
approximately$25 billion for 2016.
About the PreTRM® Test
The PreTRM® Test is the only broadly validated,
commercially available blood-based biomarker test that provides an
early, accurate and individualized risk prediction for spontaneous
preterm birth in asymptomatic singleton pregnancies. The PreTRM®
Test measures and analyzes proteins in the blood that are highly
predictive of preterm birth. The PreTRM® Test permits
physicians to identify, during the weeks 18 through 20 of
pregnancy, which women are at increased risk for preterm birth and
its complications, enabling more informed, personalized clinical
decisions based on each woman's individual risk. The
PreTRM® Test is ordered by a medical professional.
Sera Prognostics, the Sera Prognostics logo, The Pregnancy
Company, and PreTRM are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sera
Prognostics, Inc. in the United
States and/or other countries.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within
the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995, including statements relating to Dr. Critchfield's retirement
from his positions as President and CEO of the Company, and his
continuation as a director; Dr. Kamdar's appointment as Chair of
the Board; Ms. Lindgardt's appointment as interim CEO &
President of the Company; the Company's pipeline of other
potentially ground-breaking pregnancy-related test products; the
potential for the PRIME data to foster additional volume growth for
PreTRM; and the company's strategic directives under the caption
"About Sera Prognostics, Inc." These "forward-looking statements"
are based on management's current expectations of future events and
are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause
actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set
forth in or implied by forward-looking statements. These risks and
uncertainties include, but are not limited to: net losses, cash
generation, and the potential need to raise more capital; revenues
from the PreTRM Test representing substantially all Company
revenues to date; the need for broad scientific and market
acceptance of the PreTRM Test; a concentrated number of material
customers; our ability to introduce new products; potential
competition; our proprietary biobank; critical suppliers; the
COVID-19 pandemic and its potential lingering impact on our
operations, as well as the business or operations of third parties
with whom we conduct business; estimates of total addressable
market opportunity and forecasts of market growth; potential
third-party payer coverage and reimbursement; new reimbursement
methodologies applicable to the PreTRM Test, including new CPT
codes and payment rates for those codes; changes in FDA regulation
of laboratory-developed tests; the intellectual property rights
protecting our tests and market position; and other factors
discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" contained in our Final
Prospectus on Form S-1, which was filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission on July 14, 2021,
as well as any updates to those risk factors filed from time to
time in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Annual Reports on Form
10-K, or Current Reports on Form 8-K. All information in this press
release is as of the date of the release, and the Company
undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by
law.
View original content to download
multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sera-prognostics-announces-retirement-of-president-and-ceo-dr-greg-critchfield-and-appointment-of-board-member-zhenya-lindgardt-as-interim-ceo-301825169.html
SOURCE Sera Prognostics, Inc.