Magnolia Medical Appoints Robert E. Gerberich As Chief Commercial Officer

SEATTLE, April 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Magnolia Medical Technologies today announced the appointment of Robert E. Gerberich as its Chief Commercial Officer. Mr. Gerberich will be responsible for leading all commercial and customer facing functions of the company. Magnolia Medical is a leading medical device company that develops, manufactures, and markets SteriPath® and other proprietary blood and bodily fluid collection devices that significantly improve the accuracy, consistency and predictability of critical in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests.

Mr. Gerberich is a global business leader with over 25 years of experience in the surgical and medical device segments of the life sciences market. As a senior sales and marketing executive, he has an exceptional track record of success building new markets and driving rapid commercial growth from product introduction through broad scale adoption.

Most recently, Mr. Gerberich served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing and Vice President of Sales at Invuity, Inc. Under his direct commercial leadership, Invuity transformed from a small distributor-driven surgical lighting start-up into a rapid growth direct sales-driven advanced surgical photonics company leading the advancement of open minimal access surgery.

At Invuity, Mr. Gerberich led the company from a $3 million up to $50 million revenue run rate, delivering 17 consecutive quarters of quarter-over-quarter sales growth. Additionally, he drove the creation, launch and implementation of strategic marketing and partnership programs that effectively facilitated a top-down, bottom-up sales strategy. The commercial impact of these programs supported the successful initial public offering of the company in June of 2015.

Prior to Invuity, Mr. Gerberich served as President of UltraShape North America and Head of Global Sales for UltraShape Ltd (acquired by Syneron Medical Ltd.), where he established the North American subsidiary for UltraShape and launched the first nonsurgical focused ultrasound body sculpting technology in the world. In these roles, Gerberich led corporate global sales and distribution in over 50 countries.

Before UltraShape, Mr. Gerberich was Vice President of Sales and Marketing and Vice President of Sales for Thermage, Inc. (now Solta Medical, a division of Valeant Pharmaceuticals), where he led the start-up business and successful platform launch of a proprietary radiofrequency technology, creating a new market for noninvasive tissue tightening. He built a direct sales organization from the ground up and led the company from $0 to a $50 million revenue run rate. Earlier in his career, Gerberich led dynamic and fast growing sales organizations at several other medical device companies that developed products for hospital markets.

"We are thrilled to have Bob join our senior management team and lead the overall commercial organization," said Greg Bullington, CEO of Magnolia Medical. "Bob's unique background and demonstrated expertise seeding and rapidly developing new product categories and markets within the medical device industry make him the perfect fit based on our stage of growth. He is an outstanding leader with an exceptional track record of success."

"I am very enthusiastic to be joining Magnolia Medical Technologies," Gerberich said. "Our proprietary SteriPath blood culture collection system addresses a significant unmet clinical need and will set the new standard of care for the prevention of blood culture contamination and 'false positives' throughout the world. It is exciting to be with a company that has such a significant impact on improving patient care while yielding dramatic cost savings for the hospital and global healthcare markets."

About Blood Culture Contamination

Blood culture is the essential blood test used to diagnose sepsis, a complication from bloodstream infection that claims over 200,000 U.S. lives each year and is a leading cause of death.

With the current use of traditional collection methods, an average of 20 percent to 50 percent of positive blood culture tests are contaminated and ultimately determined to be false positive. That original misdiagnosis in turn often exposes patients to potent antibiotic treatments that may be inappropriate, as well as unnecessary and typically extends hospital length of stay. With longer patient stays, there is an increase in both healthcare costs and the risk of hospital-acquired conditions.

About SteriPath

The company's proprietary flagship product, SteriPath, is the only blood collection system clinically proven to virtually eliminate the "preventable error" of blood culture contamination and "false positive" blood culture test results from patients with suspected sepsis.

The SteriPath blood collection system significantly reduces false positive results by diverting and sequestering the initial 1.5-2.0 milliliter of blood, which can contain contaminants, creating access for sterile blood flow into the culture test bottles.

The easy to use, sterile, single-use closed system has been proven in multiple large scale clinical settings and trials to reduce false positive blood cultures by over 88%, thereby reducing the unnecessary and inappropriate use of antibiotics and associated patient risks of developing antibiotic-resistant infections and complications, and reduce the unnecessary costs and patient exposure to healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) associated with extended length of stay due to false positive culture results.

SteriPath facilitates immediate and measurable quality improvement for hospitals across the US that are implementing effective antimicrobial stewardship programs to reduce unnecessary and inappropriate use of antibiotics based on mandated requirements from The Joint Commission and CMS.

About Magnolia Medical Technologies

Magnolia Medical is a medical device company that develops, manufactures and markets innovative blood and bodily fluid collection devices that significantly improve the accuracy, consistency and predictability of critical IVD tests. False positive and false negative laboratory test results in the acute care setting create confusion and uncertainty that commonly lead to inappropriate, unnecessary treatments. These misdiagnoses often significantly increase utilization of antibiotics and associated complications as well as patient length of stay and risk for healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). By mechanically eliminating preventable errors that cause erroneous test results through elegantly engineered bodily fluid collection devices, Magnolia Medical's products significantly improve patient safety, patient experience and reduce hospital costs. The company has amassed an extensive IP portfolio protecting its products including 36 issued method, apparatus and design patents with over 40 additional patent applications pending. The total potential market for Magnolia Medical's technology exceeds $1.5 billion annually. For more information, visit www.magnolia-medical.com.

Contact: Liz Dowling
Dowling & Dennis Public Relations
Tel. 415-388-2794
[email protected]

SOURCE Magnolia Medical Technologies