PinkDx, Inc., an early-stage diagnostics company focused on positively impacting the health of women throughout their life journey, announced the appointment of Marra S. Francis, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., as chief medical officer.
Dr. Francis is a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist with over 20 years of experience in clinical practice and clinical leadership roles across the diagnostics and biotech sectors. She also currently serves on the faculty of the MIT Catalyst program. Most recently, Dr. Francis served as chief medical officer at Genece Health, a molecular testing start-up focused on early cancer detection, where she led clinical trial design and study collaborations. Prior to that, she held several leadership positions and was a clinical advisor to diagnostics firms with tests at various stages of development and commercialization. Earlier in her career, she served as vice chair and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Memorial Hermann Hospital of the Woodlands in Texas.
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Dr. Francis holds a medical degree from the University of Connecticut Health Center and a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Occidental College.
“We are excited for Dr. Francis to join the PinkDx team to advance our work in addressing unmet medical needs uniquely faced by women,” said Bonnie Anderson, PinkDx’s cofounder and chief executive officer. “Her deep clinical development expertise and extensive medical affairs experience will be incredibly valuable to us from our early-stage efforts through test commercialization.”
Leveraging its RNA-based, multi-omic discovery platform, PinkDx will initially focus on improving diagnostic outcomes for women who have vague symptoms that may signal a gynecological cancer. Each year in the United States, an estimated 1.5 million women1- present with general symptoms including bloating, pelvic pain and abnormal bleeding, for which the cause is not clear. Over 100,000 women in the U.S. are ultimately diagnosed with a gynecological cancer each year. PinkDx will develop solutions to replace invasive and painful diagnostic procedures and mitigate the significant delays women and their doctors often face in obtaining answers.
SOURCE: PRNewswire