Foresight Diagnostic’s Co-Founder Dr. David Kurtz Joins Company as Chief Medical Officer and Head of Research
Boulder, CO, May 1, 2024 - Foresight Diagnostics™, a leading diagnostics company specializing in the development of ultra-sensitive minimal residual disease (MRD) detection, announced today the appointment of David Kurtz, MD, PhD, as its new Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and Head of Research. As one of Foresight’s co-founders, Dr. Kurtz led the development of Foresight’s proprietary PhasED-Seq™ MRD technology and has continued to play a significant role in the company’s research, development, and commercialization activities due to his extensive experience in oncology research, clinical practice, and molecular diagnostics.
As CMO, Dr. Kurtz will lead clinical and medical affairs as well as oversee the strategic direction of Foresight's research and development, with a focus on advancing the company's liquid biopsy testing platform for MRD measurement into multiple indications. His responsibilities will include guiding clinical development strategies, fostering collaborations with key opinion leaders and healthcare providers, and ensuring that Foresight's technologies are effectively translated into pharmaceutical development and clinical practice.
"We are thrilled to have Dr. Kurtz join Foresight to lead our research and development efforts and steer our medical affairs strategy,” said Jake Chabon, CEO and Co-founder of Foresight. “As a founder, Dave has always been a core member of our team, and his new role will enable him to further our R&D as we enter a new phase of growth supporting clinical trials and developing regulated diagnostics. His deep understanding of our technology combined with his background in clinical oncology make him the ideal leader to drive our initiatives forward.”
Dr. Kurtz’s expertise comes from his time as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Principal Investigator at Stanford University. During this time, Dr. Kurtz ran an independent research laboratory focused on translational genomics. With a research background in molecular biology, cancer genomics, and bioengineering, Dr. Kurtz and his lab have been instrumental in developing and translating methods for the detection, monitoring, and treatment of hematologic malignancies. Dr. Kurtz was one of the earliest investigators to explore the utility of tumor-derived cell-free DNA in lymphomas, with a focus on improving the clinical utility and analytical sensitivity of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) detection methods. Clinically, Dr. Kurtz is a medical oncologist who specializes in the treatment of non-Hodgkin lymphomas. He will continue his clinical practice part-time alongside his new role at Foresight.
About Foresight Diagnostics
Foresight Diagnostics is a privately held cancer diagnostics company and CLIA-registered laboratory. Its liquid biopsy platform, Foresight CLARITY™, is a novel assay that measures minimal residual disease (MRD) with a significantly higher level of sensitivity than most other liquid biopsy tests, delivering a detection limit below 0.0001%, or one part-per-million. The improved sensitivity of Foresight CLARITY can provide actionable information to physicians and biopharmaceutical companies to enable more personalized treatment approaches for patients with solid tumor and hematologic malignancies. For more information, please visit foresight-dx.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About PhasED-Seq
The Foresight CLARITY MRD Detection platform is based on the Phased Variant Enrichment and Detection by Sequencing (PhasED-Seq™) technology. PhasED-Seq lowers the error profile of mutation detection in sequencing data by requiring the concordant detection of two separate non-reference events in an individual DNA molecule. By detecting more than one mutation, PhasED-Seq can more accurately distinguish tumor-derived cell free DNA (i.e., ctDNA) from healthy cell free DNA – enabling detection of ctDNA at levels below one part-per-million (<0.0001%). PhasED-Seq has been extensively tested in thousands of patient samples.
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