Board Elects New CEO to Molecular Diagnostics Company SIRS-Lab GmbH

JENA, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SIRS-Lab GmbH, the molecular diagnostics company focused on sepsis and life threatening infections, has elected Barbara Staehelin as new Chief Executive Officer.

Swiss national Barbara Staehelin is a biochemist and holds an MBA from INSEAD (Fontainebleau). She is a life science entrepreneur and has also made a career in the diagnostics industry. Until 2006, she was a member of the Global Executive Committee of Roche Diagnostics.

Barbara Staehelin: “The SIRS-Lab team is an impressive group, and I believe the SIRS-Lab technology has the potential to unlock this challenging diagnostic field by industry partnerships and with its own product pipeline.” Nicolas Fulpius and Katrin Uschmann, Board members, comment: “We are very pleased to have recruited Mrs. Staehelin. She has unmatched experience and competences to lead an innovative company like SIRS-Lab to the next level of its development.” SIRS-Lab currently has 50 employees, commercializes its breakthrough sepsis diagnostics suite and is expanding with an R&D pipeline and partnering activities.

About sepsis and life threatening infections

Sepsis occurs when microbes enter the bloodstream and trigger a severe inflammatory response by the patient´s body. This is often life-threatening, and the search for the appropriate antibiotic or antifungal treatment can be a race against time. This is a challenging area for new diagnostics because the amounts of bacteria or fungi that cause the disease are extremely small. Traditional diagnostic methods take several days to complete. With molecular diagnostics, the result can be delivered on the first day. Sepsis affects more than 2 million people per year and is the second leading cause of death in hospitals.

About SIRS-Lab GmbH

SIRS-Lab was originally founded as a university spin off in the sepsis hub Jena, among others by Profs. K. Reinhart, E. Straube, and H.-P. Saluz. The company has developed its proprietary technology LOOXSTER^® for enriching bacterial and fungal DNA compared to human DNA background, and applies it in VYOO^®, its own CE-marked diagnostic product for sepsis diagnosis. With its upcoming product SIQNATURE^®, the company also plans to assess the body´s immune response to infection by means of gene expression monitoring.

For further information, please visit: www.sirs-lab.com

Press Room: http://www.sirs-lab.com/145-0-press-room.html

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