Predictive Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ:POAI) said it has appointed healthcare commercial and business development veteran Dr Veena Rao to its board of directors.
Dr Rao will replace David Smith, who is stepping down but will remain an advisor to the board and assume duties as legal counsel to the company.
The company noted that Dr Rao currently serves as the chief business officer of Portal Instruments. In her role, she leads the identification, evaluation, and negotiation of partnership opportunities for Portal, and heads a cross-functional team of science and business professionals to guide the company's short and long-term commercial strategy.
Dr Rao also brings extensive experience launching products and building commercial organizations in the pre-launch and early launch phases. Before Portal, she served as chief commercial officer and head of Corporate Development & Strategy at Beta Bionics where she led the commercial team and was responsible for the go-to-market strategy. Prior to Beta Bionics, Dr Rao spent more than a decade working for Eli Lilly in a number of commercial and technical roles, including vice president of External Innovation in the Lilly Device, Delivery, and Digital Health groups.
Predictive Oncology's CEO, Raymond F Vennare, expressed excitement over her appointment, saying: "We are thrilled to have someone with Veena's experience and background join what I already consider to be a world-class board of directors."
Dr Rao cited the significant and rapidly growing role that AI and machine learning can play in drug discovery as the reason she joined the company's board. She noted that Predictive Oncology's PEDAL AI platform, together with its proprietary biobank, CLIA laboratory, and formulation services, provide the company with a unique portfolio of assets and capabilities that make it the "partner of choice" for both commercial drug developers and research institutions.
Predictive Oncology is on the cutting edge of the rapidly growing use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to expedite early drug discovery and enable drug development for the benefit of cancer patients worldwide.
The company's scientifically validated AI platform, PEDAL, is able to predict with 92% accuracy if a tumor sample will respond to a certain drug compound, allowing for a more informed selection of drug/tumor type combinations for subsequent in-vitro testing.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com