Sera Prognostics Appoints Dr. Michael R. Foley as Chief Medical Officer
Sera Prognostics, focused on maternal and neonatal health, announced Dr. Michael R. Foley as Chief Medical Officer starting January 2022. He brings over 20 years of Maternal-Fetal Medicine experience and has chaired Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Arizona. Dr. Foley will lead medical activities and help expand access to Sera's PreTRM® risk information, aimed at improving pregnancy outcomes. His appointment aligns with Sera's mission to provide innovative diagnostic solutions for better individualized prenatal care.
- Dr. Michael R. Foley's extensive experience in Maternal-Fetal Medicine may enhance Sera's clinical operations.
- Foley's leadership could strengthen partnerships with payers regarding PreTRM Test access.
- The appointment may attract more research collaborations due to Foley's established reputation.
- Dr. Foley's transition from academia to Sera may create initial continuity challenges.
- Potential experience gaps in operational leadership during the transition period.
SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 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 that Dr. Michael R. Foley has been appointed to the position of Chief Medical Officer beginning in January 2022. Dr. Foley will lead all medical activities for Sera as the company executes its vision to be the Pregnancy Company™. He joins a group of talented clinical operations and medical professionals who support Sera’s collaborations with research teams across the globe.
“We are honored to have Dr. Foley bring his extensive Maternal-Fetal Medicine and leadership experience to the Sera Prognostics team to help us achieve our vision to improve the lives of women and babies through individualized prenatal care,” said Gregory C. Critchfield, M.D., M.S., Chairman and CEO of Sera Prognostics. “Mike is highly respected for his expertise, his judgment, and his commitment to the health of mothers and babies. His leadership will provide important insights and perspective, as we actively educate payers about the impacts of the PreTRM Test-and-treat strategy for improving pregnancy outcomes through expanded access to valuable individualized PreTRM® risk information.”
Dr. Michael Foley initially practiced Maternal-Fetal Medicine in private practice for more than 20 years and retires on December 31, 2021 from the role of Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix/Banner Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, where he served for nearly a decade and now is working with both the university and Sera in an orderly transition that is to be completed at year-end. Dr. Foley received his medical degree from Chicago Medical School in 1984. He completed an Obstetrics and Gynecology residency and a Maternal-Fetal Medicine fellowship at The Ohio State University Hospital in 1988 and 1990, respectively. He is also an award-winning teacher, author, and has published numerous scientific articles while also serving as a reviewer for several medical journals. Dr. Foley is the Lead Editor of Obstetric Intensive Care: A Practical Manual (McGraw-Hill), which is currently in its fifth edition (2018). He is also a Co-editor for Critical Care Obstetrics-Fifth and Sixth Editions (Wiley-Blackstone).
“I am inspired to work with such an amazing ensemble of talented leaders and scientists at Sera to empower obstetric providers with novel and impactful precision pregnancy biomarker information that enables improved health for moms and babies,” said Dr. Foley. “I am looking forward to sharing my passion for medical leadership, mentoring, and professional development with Sera Prognostics’ vision to provide groundbreaking pregnancy diagnostic information to patients and physicians worldwide.”
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 deliver early, pivotal information in pregnancy to physicians, enabling them to improve the health of their patients, 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 2020 March of Dimes Report Card shows that of approximately 3.8 million babies born annually in the United States, more than one in ten 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
About the PreTRM® Test
The PreTRM® test is the only broadly clinically 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 empowers physicians to better identify, during the 19th or 20th week of pregnancy, women are at increased risk for preterm birth, 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 U.S. 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 the Company’s conversations with payers potentially expanding access to the PreTRM® Test; 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 ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its 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.
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