Toft Group Places Christopher M. Bernard as Chief Executive Officer of Newly-Formed Curetis USA, Inc

SAN DIEGO - July 6, 2016 - PRLog -- Toft Group, an executive search firm focusing exclusively on building leadership teams for Life Sciences and Healthcare, today announces another successfully completed search with Christopher M. Bernard as the new President and Chief Executive Officer of Curetis USA, Inc.

Curetis is an international corporations and developer of next-level molecular diagnostic solutions. Bernard will be responsible for leading marketing and sales initiatives in the U.S. and North America for their Unyvero Platform, which quickly diagnoses severe infectious diseases in hospitalized patients. The company recently announced completion of enrollment in the U.S. FDA trial of Unyvero, and plans to submit the Unyvero LRT55 Cartridge for FDA clearance by the end of 2016, with potential clearance and commercial launch targeted for the first half of 2017.

"Curetis approached Toft Group with a need to not only find a candidate with a strong commercial background and track-record for successfully growing companies 'from the ground up', but someone who was the right cultural fit," commented Robin Toft, President & CEO of Toft Group Executive Search. "All candidates go through our multi-dimensional vetting process and we were thrilled at how well Chris complemented Curetis' global leadership team almost immediately, and the search was completed much more quickly than originally anticipated."

"We are pleased to have Chris join Curetis as the CEO of our U.S. subsidiary," commented Oliver Schacht, PhD, CEO of Curetis N.V. "He is a highly accomplished executive with proven ability to develop successful sales and marketing strategies, drive growth for emerging companies, manage operations and deliver on key strategic, commercial and operational objectives. He is an important addition to the leadership team at Curetis and Curetis USA, Inc."

Mr. Bernard joins Curetis with more than 22 years of diagnostics, biopharmaceutical and translational research industry experience, including roles in executive management, strategic development, product commercialization, marketing and sales. Prior to joining Curetis, Mr. Bernard served as Chief Commercial Officer of Epic Sciences, developer of one of the few commercially available platforms that can identify circulating tumor cells in the blood. In this role, Mr. Bernard was responsible for the expansion of Epic`s technology in collaboration with pharmaceutical and biotech companies and leading cancer research centers and the commercialization of Epic`s independent and companion diagnostic products.

Prior to joining Epic Sciences, Mr. Bernard worked at Metabolon, Inc. as an Officer and Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, where he rebuilt the company`s Metabolytics business, a business-to-business biochemical profiling service responsible for the company`s total sales at the time. Prior to Metabolon, he served as Vice President, Sales and Marketing and as an Officer of Abaxis, Inc., directing the sales and marketing efforts for the company`s point-of-care diagnostic chemistry platform, Piccolo Xpress®. Mr. Bernard began his career at Cytyc Corporation (Hologic, Inc.), ultimately becoming the regional business director where he was responsible for growth in sales and management of a portfolio of diagnostic products, including ThinPrep® Pap Test and Imager, and NovaSure® endometrial ablation.

Mr. Bernard received a B.A. in Psychobiology from Hiram College, Ohio, where he is a current board member of the Center for Entrepreneurship.

"Curetis is a cutting-edge molecular diagnostics company with tremendous opportunity," said Mr. Bernard. "I am very excited by this opportunity to lead Curetis USA and support the planned North American commercialization of the Unyvero platform. I look forward to working with Curetis` outstanding executive team and board to advance the company and position it for further success."

He added: "This is an exciting as well as strategically important time to be joining Curetis. Once FDA clearance is accomplished, the Unyvero System will make an immediate impact in U.S. hospitals in two key areas: lower respiratory tract infections and antibiotic resistance. In the U.S., there is a death every 10 minutes due to pneumonia, and respiratory infections are the second leading cause of hospitalizations. Coupled with increasing global concern around super bugs that are resistant to standard antibiotics, this makes the timing of a U.S. launch for Curetis ideal."

About Toft Group Executive Search

Toft Group Executive Search is "Changing the Future of Medicine, One Relationship at a Time" and we take pride in the fact that our work helps our clients accelerate getting novel products to market. We are a global retained executive search firm that is 100% dedicated to life sciences & healthcare industries. Our customers include biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device, digital health, and diagnostic companies. With offices in San Francisco, San Diego, and Boston, we assist a wide range of local, national and international companies - from venture backed start-ups to Fortune 500 corporations. For more information, visit www.thetoftgroup.com

About Curetis

Founded in 2007, Curetis is a molecular diagnostics company, which focuses on the development and commercialization of reliable, fast and cost-effective products for diagnosing severe infectious diseases. The diagnostic solutions of Curetis enable rapid multi-parameter pathogen and antibiotic resistance marker detection in only a few hours, a process that today can take up to days or even weeks with other techniques. To date, Curetis has raised EUR 44.3 million in an IPO on Euronext Amsterdam and Euronext Brussels and private equity funds of over EUR 63.5 million. The company is based in Holzgerlingen near Stuttgart, Germany. Curetis has signed collaboration agreements with Heraeus Medical and Cempra Inc. as well as several international distribution agreements covering many countries across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.