Just over one month after announcing an $8.3 million round of investment set to fuel hiring and product rollout, Albuquerque-based bioscience startup Circular Genomics said it hired two new people for its leadership team, including a C-level executive and a research director.
The startup, which operates out of The Bioscience Center in Albuquerque, is developing a circular RNA-based diagnostic to identify and treat types of neurological diseases like depression and bipolar disorder. It announced Monday it hired Dave Karlander as chief commercial officer, and Vishi Srinivasan, Ph.D., as senior director of clinical research.
Karlander joins the Albuquerque company from Biocept Inc., a biopharma company based in San Diego, where he served as senior vice president of commercial operations. Other companies where Karlander has worked include San Francisco-based Mission Bio and Switzerland-based Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS), one of the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world with net sales in 2023 north of $45 billion, per full year financial results.
Srinivasan joins Circular Genomics from Hologic Inc., a public medical technology company (NASDAQ: HOLX) based in San Diego, where he served as director of assay development. He's also worked at companies that include Cambridge, Massachusetts-based IntelligentMDx and Brea, California-based Beckman Coulter Diagnostics.
The moves come about one month after Circular Genomics announced the close of an $8.3 million Series A round. CEO Paul Sargeant, Ph.D., told New Mexico Inno in late January money raised will primarily be used to fuel additional hiring and product rollout in the year ahead. He said the startup could double its headcount by the end of the year and released its first product — a circular RNA biomarker-based antidepressant therapy prediction tool — in 2024.
Sargeant, in a Monday statement, said Karlander's previous experience with "several product launches" and Srinivasan's work in developing diagnostic and life science products would help Circular Genomics hit those two goals.
"We believe their combined expertise will position us well for the launch of our first SSRI antidepressant response test, fulfilling our promise to deliver precision psychiatry and neurologic medicines," Sargeant said in a statement.
Precision psychiatry, an emerging bioscience field built around tailored therapeutic approaches, is "heating up," Sargeant previously told New Mexico Inno, especially as the Covid-19 pandemic shed more light on mental health issues. Circular Genomics wants its circular RNA-based products to fit into that emerging field to assist individuals in understanding which types of therapeutic treatments they'll best respond to.
