Biofourmis names two pharmaceutical veterans to leadership team

New Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Commercial Officer to guide worldwide expansion of digital therapeutics solution across pharma, payer and provider markets

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Biofourmis

Aug 22, 2019, 07:30 ET

BOSTON, Aug. 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Biofourmis, a fast-growing global leader in digital therapeutics based in Boston, has added two global pharmaceutical senior executive veterans to its executive team to guide the company's worldwide expansion across the pharmaceutical, managed care, healthcare provider and medical technology markets.

John Varaklis, who has more than 25 years experience at Roche, Abbott and Novartis, has been appointed as Biofourmis' Chief Strategy Officer. Peter Braun, whose pharma experience includes 28 years at Roche, has been named Biofourmis' Chief Commercial Officer. Both leaders have extensive experience developing and growing multibillion-dollar products across global markets, including all aspects of clinical research, business development and new market creation.

Varaklis' most recent leadership position was with Roche as its Global Head of Clinical Operations. He joined Roche from Abbott's Established Pharmaceuticals Division (EPD), where, as director of Clinical Operations and Digital Health Solutions, he oversaw the execution of interventional Phase 1-4 clinical studies and had responsibility for the development of the EPD Digital Health strategy, including digital therapeutics.

"The integration of pharmacotherapy, remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics is poised to become a standard of care across healthcare," Varaklis said. "Pharma companies are leveraging the technology to streamline and enhance drug development, as well as to demonstrate the value of specific therapies as value-based reimbursement becomes more common. Biofourmis is leading the charge with its innovative technology, and I'm looking forward to working with the rest of the leadership team as we forge additional partnerships in the United States and worldwide."

Most recently, Braun was Head of Global Access Strategy, Health Policy & Communications, at Roche. While there, he created a global and regional team that inspired more than 200 initiatives in more than 70 countries, with the aim of removing systematic healthcare system barriers to ensure patients have sustainable access to Roche's innovative medicines with a corresponding business impact. Additionally, Braun has extensive strategic, operational and executive leadership experience across multiple therapeutic areas in multiple markets and regions, as well as leading global commercial and development teams such as the revolutionary breast and gastric cancer drug Herceptin.

"After nearly three decades in the healthcare industry, I immediately recognized what a positive impact Biofourmis' technology can make for payers, healthcare providers and, most importantly, patients and their caregivers," Braun said. "Biofourmis' artificial intelligence engine uses clinical-grade remote patient monitoring combined with personalized interfaces with clinicians and patients to enter a new realm—improving clinical outcomes by predicting and preventing serious medical events. It's exciting to join an organization with such an innovative and effective solution and such incredible growth potential."

Biofourmis' solution Biovitals™ is a powerful patented AI-based platform for therapeutic decision support. It continuously analyzes data from medical-grade wearable sensors and other patient-generated data to create unique digital biomarkers reflecting the health status of an individual. These digital biomarkers have been assessed in several real-world studies and have demonstrated the ability to help detect changes in an individual's health status much faster than traditional remote monitoring methods.

Biofourmis has partnered with leading healthcare providers, payers and pharmaceutical companies around the world on clinical research and development to help reduce readmissions, limit emergency department visits, improve patient outcomes, and rethink the way care is managed and reimbursed.

"We're thrilled that Peter and John will be leveraging their deep experience and perspectives from the pharma and payer industries as our growth continues to gain momentum worldwide," said Kuldeep Singh Rajput, CEO of Biofourmis. "Having two such experienced global executives guiding our commercialization and strategy efforts will certainly accelerate that momentum as we continue to work with healthcare and life sciences organizations to demonstrate their value, improve patient outcomes, and reduce costs."

To date, Biofourmis has raised $44 million in venture funding, including a recently closed $35 million Series B round. Biofourmis, which moved its headquarters from Singapore to Boston in May, aims to grow to more than 100 employees in the United States and Singapore by the end of 2019.

About Biofourmis

Biofourmis is a fast-growing global leader in digital therapeutics based in Boston. Biofourmis is pioneering an entirely new category of digital health by developing clinically validated software-based therapeutics to provide better outcomes for patients, smarter engagement and tracking tools for clinicians that deliver personalized care, cost-effective solutions for payers, and technology that speeds drug development and supports value-based reimbursements for pharma. Biofourmis has built Biovitals™, a highly sophisticated personalized AI-powered health analytics platform that predicts clinical exacerbation in advance before a critical event, which is the backbone of their digital therapeutics product pipeline across therapeutic areas—including heart failure, acute coronary syndrome, COPD and chronic pain.

For more information visit: www.biofourmis.com

Media Contact:
Tara Stultz
Amendola Communications for Biofourmis
440.225.9595
[email protected]

SOURCE Biofourmis