Dr. Thomas McElrath, M.D., Ph.D., appointed as Vice President of Clinical Development
Dr. Lee N. Newcomer, M.D., joins Mirvie as Senior Advisor on Market Access
Mirvie, a company bringing a personalized, predictive, and preventive approach to pregnancy health, today announced two new key additions to the executive team: Dr. Thomas McElrath M.D., Ph.D. as Vice President of Clinical Development and Dr. Lee N. Newcomer M.D. as Senior Advisor on Market Access.
Life-threatening complications continue to rise, especially hypertensive disease in pregnancy. Preeclampsia — a leading cause of maternal and infant illness and death - impacts 1 in 12 pregnancies and sends routine pregnancies into a crisis. The consequences are massive: new moms must live with the trauma of nearly dying or seeing their babies in the NICU, OBGYNs and care teams are already overstretched and must triage these scenarios to save both the lives of moms and their babies, and payers spend more than $10 billion in crisis management for babies and moms.
“The outdated status quo isn’t working. We need modern tools to understand why certain individuals are at risk for pregnancy complications, so they can benefit from preventive care,” said Maneesh Jain, CEO and co-founder of Mirvie. “Mirvie's breakthrough research and proprietary RNA platform, have created the first and only simple blood test to objectively predict risk, months before symptoms occur, based on 10,000+ pregnancies. We now have a clear opportunity to reverse the maternal health crisis through preventive care. We’re confident Dr. Thomas McElrath and Dr. Lee N. Newcomer, renowned experts in their respective fields, will help Mirvie achieve the highest evidentiary standards and healthier futures for moms and their families.”
“We still use a prenatal care paradigm that was developed nearly 100 years ago, specifically to detect preeclampsia symptoms and to manage it, and nothing has changed,” said Dr. Thomas McElrath, M.D., Ph.D., Mirvie’s vice president of clinical development. “Mirvie’s RNA platform and test have the opportunity to reshape how we deliver prenatal care. By biologically understanding who’s at risk early in pregnancy and by targeting preventive care to those individuals, we have a significantly improved opportunity to prevent preeclampsia or mitigate the severity of the disease. I’m excited that Mirvie is bringing precision medicine into pregnancy health, freeing up scarce OBGYN resources so care teams can target high-risk patients with the right treatments and care at the right time.”
Dr. McElrath is a board-certified maternal-fetal medicine attending physician at Brigham & Women's Hospital and Professor of Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School. He is also a Professor at the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. He serves as the Medical Director of the Brigham and Women’s Preterm Birth Clinic and Obstetrical Director of the Epilepsy and Neurologic Disorders in Pregnancy Prenatal Clinic. He’s dedicated his career to women’s health and developing novel translational medicine approaches in pregnancy health.
“Creating broad access to this test for all moms is critical, as Mirvie’s test represents an opportunity to create a new standard of predictive and preventive care for preeclampsia,” said Dr. Lee N. Newcomer, Mirvie’s Senior Advisor on Market Access. “Treatment can begin before any symptoms threaten the mother or the baby. Obstetricians can focus more time and resources on these high-risk mothers to enable a healthy outcome for mom and baby. Everyone wins – mother, baby, obstetrician and payer – because preeclampsia, a dangerous and expensive disease, can be avoided.”
Dr. Newcomer served in multiple roles at UnitedHealth Group, including Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Oncology and Genetics. Before his work at UnitedHealth Group, he practiced medical oncology for nine years in Minneapolis and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a former Chairman of Park Nicollet Health Services (HealthPartners).
Mirvie is bringing a personalized, predictive, and preventive approach to pregnancy health with the first simple blood test to predict the risk of complications like preeclampsia, months in advance. Backed by rigorous clinical research, the proprietary Mirvie RNA platform reveals vital, actionable information about the unique biology of a pregnancy. This breakthrough allows pregnant women and their care teams to put a preventive action plan in place before a complication becomes a life-threatening crisis. Serious complications impact one in five pregnancies in the U.S., and Mirvie is committed to creating a world where every pregnancy is as safe and healthy as possible. Mirvie is backed by top-tier investors including Blackrock, Decheng Capital, Foresite Capital, General Catalyst, GV, Khosla Ventures, and Mayfield.
Kate Enos
Director of Media Relations
kate@mirvie.com
