Digital pathology services company Flagship Biosciences add new CEO

PRLog (Press Release) - May 25, 2010 -
Flagstaff, AZ – Flagship Biosciences LLC, a provider of digital pathology services, announced that Steven Potts has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer, with Dave Young continuing to serve as President of Flagship Biosciences. Steve has extensive experience in digital pathology, both at Aperio Technologies and previously at Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute. He has worked for the last three years managing the biopharma business for Aperio, initiating and leading the work in GLP compliance and angiogenesis measurement, and in the development of standards for whole slide imaging in biopharmaceutical preclinical and clinical trials applications.

“Diagnostics is a growing problem in oncology; having more quantitative, precise tools for assessing these markers in patients is increasingly critical for the successful development and commercialization of today’s highly-targeted cancer therapies.The current gap in this area is analogous to what we had 20 years ago before central laboratory testing was established as a business standard for clinical drug development. Building on his technical leadership and business development experience at Quest and Aperio, Steve Potts and the Flagship pathology team are now positioned to provide the tools and collaborative services that will enable pathologists to make whole slide analyses in a quantitative, precise fashion, which will set a new standard for both regulatory-driven tissue assessment and patient care,” said Jack Bloom, VMD, Ph.D., who serves on the Board of Directors of Flagship Biosciences.

“The primary factor in the success of digital pathology is the pathologists and the pathology support, not the technology,” said Steve Potts. “How well are they able to work side-by-side with image analysis scientists, how well are they supported by IT in hosting and sharing data through firewalls, how quickly do they embrace the use of the computer screen for daily work? I am proud to join two visionary pathologists in helping drive this technology forward. David Young’s most recent work with EMT biomarkers and clinical companion diagnostics at OSI Pharmaceuticals, and Frank Voelker’s long track record of image analysis innovation are remarkable examples of the potential for this technology, provided that it is led by pathologists. Rather than a few IHC tests run thousands of times in a clinical environment, drug and device development require almost each study to have a new image analysis technique applied by a pathologist. Flagship has a remarkable combination of pathologist and image analysis experts, working side-by-side and delivering results quickly and cost-effectively.”

Flagship Biosciences is a pathologist-owned company whose mission is to improve tissue assessment in pharmaceutical and medical device development. Flagship’s services include quantitative pathology assessment on-demand, low-cost digital pathology slide scanning, secure hosting, pathologist-supervised IHC and histology placement, custom image analysis and companion diagnostics development. All of their services are reviewed and supervised by board-certified pathologists.