Exact Sciences announces appointment of diagnostics veteran Graham Lidgard as Chief Scientific Officer

Exact Sciences announces appointment of diagnostics veteran Graham Lidgard as Chief Scientific Officer

MADISON – Exact Sciences Corp. today announced the appointment of Graham P. Lidgard, Ph.D., as the company’s chief scientific officer. Dr. Lidgard, 60, brings more than three decades of clinical diagnostics experience to Exact. His past work includes molecular and immunoassay diagnostic product development, clinical trial preparation and execution, and preparation of successful pre-market approval, or PMA, and 510(k) submissions to the U.S Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Lidgard led the research and development organization at Gen-Probe Inc. that developed that company’s Procleix blood-screening products and Aptima sexually-transmitted disease products. These product lines generated more than $400 million in revenues during 2008. Dr. Lidgard also created and led the system development group at Gen-Probe that developed its fully-automated Tigris system.
Prior to joining Gen-Probe, Dr. Lidgard was co-founder and vice president of product development of Matritech Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based developer of diagnostic products for the early detection of bladder cancer. The company was acquired by Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. in 2007. Before he co-founded Matritech, Dr. Lidgard held senior positions at Ciba Corning Diagnostics Corp.’s worldwide diagnostics group. While at Ciba Corning, he was involved in the development of more than 70 510(k)-cleared products. He led the program for the development of the magnetic particle chemiluminescent technology that became the ACS:180 and Centaur systems. He also directed the company’s business development and marketing groups, and held operations and global product management positions.
Dr. Lidgard joins Exact Sciences from Nanogen Inc., where he was senior vice president of research and development. While at Nanogen, he managed its point of care and molecular diagnostics research and development groups.
“Exact Sciences is very pleased to welcome Dr. Lidgard to the company,” said Kevin T. Conroy, the company’s president and chief executive. “Graham’s remarkable breadth and depth of molecular diagnostics commercialization and regulatory experience will be instrumental in Exact’s efforts to execute on our product development and clinical trial planning priorities. We are fortunate to have an industry veteran with Graham’s credentials join us in our mission to reduce colon cancer deaths through early, patient-friendly detection.”
“I am delighted to join Exact Sciences at this very important time in the company’s development,” Dr. Lidgard said. “We have a very real opportunity to reduce colon cancer mortality and positively affect the outcomes of tens of thousands patients. I look forward to applying my molecular diagnostics experience to the refinement, clinical trial and commercialization of Exact’s colon cancer screening test.”
Dr. Lidgard earned a bachelor’s degree with honors and a doctorate in biological chemistry from the University of Manchester in England.
About Exact Sciences Corp.
Exact Sciences Corp. is a molecular diagnostics company focused on colorectal cancer. The company has exclusive intellectual property protecting its non-invasive, molecular screening technology for the detection of colorectal cancer. Stool-based DNA technology is included in the colorectal cancer screening guidelines of the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Multi-Society Task Force on Colorectal Cancer.