Neonatal Diagnostics Company InfanDx Appoints Achim Plum as CEO

Dr. Achim Plum has more than 20 years of management experience in the life science and diagnostics industry. During his career, Dr. Plum gained broad expertise in all aspects of in vitro diagnostics research, development, regulatory clearance, and commercialization, and focused on innovative biomarkers, personalized medicine and diagnostic solutions for point-of-care and near-patient testing.

“We are very pleased that we could win Dr. Plum to lead the Company through the next phases of product development and commercialization. His broad diagnostics expertise and industry network will be key to the further growth and success of InfanDx,” commented Wolfgang Kintzel, Chairman of InfanDx’ Supervisory Board. “I also would like to take the opportunity to thank Ron Meyer, the founding CEO of InfanDx, for his tireless efforts in biomarker research and collaborative clinical development that the Company can now build on. On behalf of the Supervisory Board, I wish him all the best with his future endeavors.”

“I am very much looking forward to working with the InfanDx team and Supervisory Board. The Company has established an outstanding network of scientific and clinical collaborators to make a difference for the youngest and most vulnerable of all patients. Our InfanDx HypoxE-test® in development has the potential to help improving outcomes for newborns suffering from brain damage caused by perinatal asphyxia, providing these children with a chance of a life without disabilities,” said Dr. Achim Plum, CEO of InfanDx.

InfanDx HypoxE-test® is the Company’s proprietary lead product in clinical development. It is based on a panel of proprietary biomarkers and designed for the rapid and reliable diagnosis of perinatal asphyxia (oxygen deficit during birth) and early identification of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) within the first hours of birth. HIE as a consequence of perinatal asphyxia (oxygen deficit during birth) can result in life-long disabilities of the children affected. The long-term detrimental effects of HIE can be mitigated and even prevented by neuroprotective hypothermia treatment initiated within six hours of birth, provided that affected newborns can be reliably and timely identified by suitable diagnostic methods.

Prior to joining InfanDx, Dr. Plum has been Managing Director of SphingoTec GmbH (Hennigsdorf/Germany), a company developing and commercializing innovative diagnostic solutions in acute and critical care. Prior to that, he held the position of CBO and Executive Board Member of the publicly listed Curetis Group (Stuttgart, Germany), now OpGen Group (Gaithersburg, MD, USA), a company focusing on rapid molecular infectious disease diagnostics for near-patient testing. He also was founding Managing Director of Ares Genetics GmbH (Vienna/Austria), a digital diagnostics company and subsidiary of Curetis GmbH focusing on AI-powered molecular antibiotic susceptibility prediction. Prior to Curetis, Dr. Plum held a senior management position at Siemens Healthineers, where he was responsible for Diagnostic and BioScience Technology & Innovation. Dr. Plum started his career in diagnostics at the cancer diagnostics company Epigenomics (Berlin, Germany), lastly as Senior Vice President Business & Strategy. Dr. Plum studied genetics, cell biology and biochemistry in Bonn, Germany, and Norwich, UK. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from the University of Bonn in 1999. For more information see: https://www.linkedin.com/in/achim-plum-5692aa26/