Genetic Analysis strengthens and future-proofs the organization

OSLO, NORWAY, January 31, 2023 – Molecular diagnostics specialist, Genetic Analysis AS (“GA”) is happy to announce that GA is strengthening and future-proofing the organization within business development, sales, and product development to be better positioned to harvest opportunities in the microbiome market. As diagnostics is now becoming a vital part of the treatment regime for gastroenterological disorders, GA believes that the microbiome diagnostic market will continue to rapidly increase in the coming years.  Following the recent regulatory approval of microbiome-altering drugs in the US, GA also sees a significant increase in opportunities to add several new markers on the GA-map® platform.

The business development function will initially have a specific focus on building a business on the GA-map® platform towards labs in the US, as well as focus on the significant opportunity that microbiome-altering drugs represent for GA as a diagnostics player.

GA is therefore pleased to announce that GA’s Chief Technology Officer Kari Furu has accepted the new position as Head of Business and Product Development. Kari and GA’s development teams have developed world-leading innovative products for GA, and its product development within IBD attracted strong interest recently as a finalist in the Lyfebulb and Bristol Myers Squibb Innovation Challenge addressing unmet needs in IBD.

We are also happy to announce an addition to the management team, Mr. Detlef Janke, who has accepted the position of Commercial Director. Detlef has more than 30 years of experience in commercial and management positions in the diagnostic industry with companies like Bio-Rad, Axis-Shield, and Gentian. Detlef is based in Germany and has been with GA since 2015. Detlef will focus on further commercialization of our GA-map® platform.

GA is also happy to announce that Ms. Pranvera Hiseni has accepted the position of Development Manager, reporting to the Head of Business and Product Development, where she will be responsible for GA's development projects. Pranvera has worked in GA’s development department with a key focus on platform development and has also been instrumental in building up the HumGut Database, a comprehensive human gut metagenome collection.

After the implementation of the new organization, the management team will consist of:

• Ronny Hermansen (CEO)
• Eilert Aamodt (CFO)
• Cristina Casén (Senior VP Clinical & Medical Affairs)
• Lars Tiller (Head of Operations)
• Kari Furu (Head of Business and Product Development)
• Detlef Janke (Commercial Director)

With these new organizational changes, the previous responsibilities of the CTO and CCO will be implemented under the Product and Software development team and the clinical team.
The new organization will be implemented immediately.

Ronny Hermansen, CEO of Genetic Analysis, comments:
“I am happy to announce that Ms. Kari Furu and Mr. Detlef Janke have accepted to join the GA management team with a core focus on business development and sales. I am also happy to announce that Pranvera Hiseni has accepted to take a leading role in GA’s development function. GA sees the increasing awareness around our product offerings and research within the Microbiome field, and by focusing on our organisation, GA will take a strong position in this booming market. Ms. Anita Patel Jusnes, former CCO, has accepted a new position in the pharma industry, and I thank her for the outstanding work she has done for GA over the last few years, where she has been instrumental in the commercialization of the GA-map®.”

For further information, please contact:
Ronny Hermansen, Chief Executive Officer
E-mail: rh@genetic-analysis.com

About Genetic Analysis:
Genetic Analysis AS (GA) is a science-based diagnostic company and pioneer in the human microbiome field with more than 10 years of expertise in research and product development. The unique GA-map® platform is based on a pre-determined multiplex targets approach specialized for simultaneous analysis of a large number of bacteria in one reaction. The test results are generated by utilizing the clinically validated cutting edge GA-map® software algorithm. This enables immediate results without the need for further bioinformatics work. GA’s vision is to become the leading company for standardized gut microbiota testing worldwide, and GA is committed to help unlocking and restoring the human microbiome through its state-of-the-art technology. GA employs a team of highly qualified employees with scientific backgrounds and competence in bioinformatics, molecular biology, and bioengineering.

For more information: www.genetic-analysis.com

Interested in reading more about GA's products? Please visit ga-map.com

About HumGut:
A comprehensive HumGut microbiome database co-developed and funded by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) and GA with support from the Research Council of Norway. HumGut comprises a collection of about 30,000 genomes, covering the broad diversity of bacterial genomes found in the human gut. Unique to HumGut is that the genome collection has been filtered towards nearly 6000 metagenomes from healthy humans, classifying on average 95% of all metagenome reads and making it superior to all other genome collections. Accurate classification is essential in the development of targeted human gut microbiota diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. With a 95 % classification accuracy, HumGut has reached the milestone of being able to serve as a reference in these developments. GA and NMBU envisage HumGut being used for meta-studies of the human gut to make discoveries about the relationship between the microbiota and diseases. To facilitate this, the database will be made publicly available for any kind of research within the gut microbiome ecosystem. This powerful search engine is being used by GA to identify novel gut signatures which we can plug into our GA-map® technology platform to develop new innovative diagnostic markers within the microbiome field.

*Hiseni P, Rudi K, Wilson RC, Hegge FT, Snipen L. HumGut: a comprehensive human gut prokaryotic genomes collection filtered by metagenome data. Microbiome. 2021 Jul 31;9(1):165. doi: 10.1186/s40168-021-01114-w. PMID: 34330336