Nucleix Appoints Michael G. Vicari as Chief Commercial Officer

SAN DIEGO & REHOVOT, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Nucleix, a liquid biopsy company revolutionizing cancer treatment by detecting the disease earlier, announced the appointment of commercial veteran, Michael G. Vicari, as Chief Commercial Officer.

At Nucleix, Mr. Vicari will build the company’s commercial team, preparing and leading efforts to launch Nucleix’s Lung EpiCheck®, a simple blood test that analyzes changes in DNA methylation patterns to identify lung cancer early. Lung EpiCheck has been optimized to focus on sensitivity in people who are at high-risk due to their smoking history, so that physicians have a better chance of early detection and patients have a better chance of successful treatment.

“Mike’s leadership and deep experience in the diagnostic industry make him a great fit as our Chief Commercial Officer, which is a key role as we accelerate our work with Lung EpiCheck,” said Chris Hibberd, Chief Executive Officer at Nucleix. “His three decades of experience building and leading commercial sales and marketing organizations will strengthen our leadership team and will also ensure that Nucleix can continue to make incredible strides in advancing Lung EpiCheck and further our non-invasive technology that aims to detect cancer early.”

Earlier this year, Nucleix revealed initial findings from its EpiCheck® Lung Cancer Atlas at the 2023 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting. The proprietary Lung Atlas was constructed and developed as part of a multi-institutional effort to map epigenetic and genomic changes associated with early-stage lung cancer, particularly stage I disease. Results demonstrated the strength of Lung EpiCheck and Nucleix’s differentiated approach for the discovery and identification of novel biomarkers for non-invasive lung cancer screening. The company is leveraging these findings to advance a highly sensitive version of the Lung EpiCheck test, which incorporates novel markers from the Lung Atlas and is optimized to detect minute cancer epigenetic signals in the blood with greater sensitivity. Additionally, Nucleix is currently enrolling 5,000 high-risk current and former smokers as part of the Lung EpiCheck development program under its Sightline multi-center clinical study.

Prior to joining Nucleix, Mr. Vicari served as Senior Vice President of Sales at GRAIL, Inc., a multi-cancer healthcare company, where his team successfully launched Galleri®, the world’s first of its kind Multi Cancer Early Detection (MCED) screening test, which generated $55 million in revenue in 2022. Prior to GRAIL, Mr. Vicari held senior level commercial positions at Inivata, OncoCyte, Sequenom, Monogram Biosciences and Genentech.

“Having established and grown world-class commercial organizations, I see incredible potential in Nucleix’s EpiCheck platform and look forward to the opportunity to work with Chris and the team to fully realize the potential of Lung EpiCheck,” said Mr. Vicari. “Lung cancer remains a leading cause of death globally, due to its high incidence and late-stage diagnosis, and I am passionate about bringing this potential solution forward to detect lung cancer earlier, when survival is more likely to increase the chances of long-term benefit.”

About Lung EpiCheck®

Lung EpiCheck is designed to be a simple PCR-based blood test that detects lung cancer at its earliest stages. The new test utilizes biomarkers discovered from the Nucleix Lung Atlas project, which was constructed and developed as part of a multi-institutional effort to leverage NGS EpiCheck to map epigenetic and genomic changes associated with early-stage lung cancer, particularly stage I disease. Lung EpiCheck is being developed for potential use in individuals with a history of smoking who are at high-risk of developing lung cancer. The test is not yet commercially available.

About Nucleix

Nucleix is a liquid biopsy company revolutionizing cancer treatment with earlier disease detection at a time when intervention can bring the greatest impact for patients. Leveraging NGS-based and PCR-based technology to identify methylation changes, the Company’s pioneering testing approach uses methylation-based identification for early-stage and recurring cancer detection. The Company’s non-invasive EpiCheck® delivers highly accurate and sensitive results, all while providing a seamless testing option for physicians, patients, and the healthcare system. The Company is building an EpiCheck franchise, beginning with the Bladder EpiCheck® kit, CE-marked and available in Europe for primary and recurrent bladder cancer and upper tract urinary cancer, and FDA 510(k) cleared for bladder cancer recurrence in the United States. The Company is advancing its Lung EpiCheck® test towards commercialization for high-risk individuals, while evaluating additional tests for other high-risk diseases. For more information, please visit: https://www.nucleix.com.

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