Spartan Bioscience Appoints Roger Eacock as Chief Executive Officer, Broadens Executive Team and Welcomes New Board Members

OTTAWA, Ontario, November 10, 2020 (Newswire.com) - Spartan Bioscience is pleased to announce a strengthened executive leadership team and new members of the Board of Directors. These significant additions position Spartan for the next phase of the company's growth and include a new Chief Executive Officer, a newly elected Board of Directors, a Chief Commercial Officer, and a Chief Legal and Administrative Officer.

Roger Eacock joins Spartan as its new Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors. Eacock is a seasoned leader with notable experience in transformations and fast-growth companies, including TerrAscend, Sobeys, SunOpta, and Dell, among others. Eacock's background in manufacturing and scaling operations globally will be critical as Spartan moves towards the delivery execution phase of its COVID-19 test system.

"I'm very excited to be joining Spartan at this critical time of growth," said Eacock. "I believe that Spartan has an incredibly talented team and a uniquely Canadian decentralized COVID-19 testing solution that will be a great asset to Canada's public health response. I look forward to not only bringing this test to market but bringing Spartan's technology to a wide variety of other industries as well."

Eacock's appointment follows the election of three new members to Spartan's Board of Directors and the addition of two further members to the executive team.

Board Chair Rochelle Stenzler is a pharmacist by training with extensive experience as a senior executive in healthcare, retailing, consumer packaged goods, and Interactive Voice Response technology. Her corporate experience includes having served as President of Revlon Canada Inc. and President & General Manager of Pharma Plus Drugmarts Ltd.

Dr. Arun Menawat is the CEO of Profound Medical Inc, a medical technology company developing a real-time MRI-guided thermal ultrasound system for incision-free ablation of abnormal or cancerous tissue and former President and CEO of Novadaq Technologies.

Maryscott (Scotty) Greenwood serves as Partner and the Managing Director of the Crestview Strategy US LLC, a public affairs consultancy, and is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian American Business Council. 

Continuing directors are Seymour Liebman, Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, and General Counsel of Canon U.S.A., Inc., and Dr. Jamie Spiegelman, co-founder of Spartan Bioscience and a senior staff doctor at Humber River Regional Hospital.

Additionally, Lennie Ryer (CPA, CA, CFE) will be joining Spartan's executive team as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). He has over 20 years of experience as a CFO at a variety of biotechnology companies, including SQI Diagnostics and ConjuChem.

Trevor Brown also joins the Spartan executive team as Chief Commercial Officer. Brown brings a deep understanding of the molecular diagnostics and life sciences markets, including genomics and infectious diseases, and immunology. He joins most recently from Seracare Lifesciences where he served as Vice President, Precision Medicine, overseeing strong commercial growth and a successful exit to LGC Group in 2018. He is also a former Director of Global Strategic Marketing at Luminex Molecular Diagnostics.

Finally, Jennifer Ross-Carriere also becomes a member of the Spartan executive team as Chief Legal & Administrative Officer. Ross-Carriere joins most recently from IFS (previously Mxi Technologies Ltd.) where she served as General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Vice-President, People & Culture.

Spartan is confident these appointments will allow the company to rapidly commercialize its portable DNA testing platform, the Spartan Cube®, into strategic markets and maximize long-term growth opportunities. Spartan remains focused on delivering its COVID-19 testing technology, a key component of Canada's strategy to keep our economy open and fight against COVID-19 in the months ahead.

About Spartan Bioscience

Founded in 2005, Spartan Bioscience is a Canadian biotechnology company and leader in portable molecular diagnostic testing. The Spartan Cube® brings complete sample-to-result DNA testing to fields such as precision medicine, environmental water testing, and infectious diseases. Spartan's technology has been published in prestigious medical journals including The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine and is used by expert organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and Mayo Clinic. 

Source: Spartan Bioscience