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SELECTBIO Conferences Rapid Diagnostic Testing 2022 - SARS-CoV-2 & Beyond

Mickey Urdea's Biography



Mickey Urdea, Founding Partner & Principal, Halteres Associates

Dr. Mickey Urdea is Founder and Partner for Halteres Associates. He also founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Tethys Bioscience, a proteomics-based diagnostics company that has been involved in the prevention of type-2 diabetes (assets acquired by HDL), and was Chief Executive Officer of Quantum Dots Corporation (assets acquired by Life Technologies). Additionally, Dr. Urdea is a founder and the Chairman of Catalysis Foundation for Health (CFH), a non-profit organization addressing gaps in global healthcare caused by inefficiencies in disease diagnosis and monitoring. Dr. Urdea is a member of the University of California at San Francisco Leadership Council for Global Health. He serves as a consultant to the life sciences industry and is on the scientific advisory boards and boards of directors of a number of biotechnology and diagnostics companies. Prior to his current activities, Dr. Urdea founded the Nucleic Acid Diagnostics business at Chiron Corporation, where he pioneered viral load assays for the human hepatitis B, hepatitis C and immunodeficiency viruses; his team introduced the first commercial viral load assays for all three viruses. Dr. Urdea also headed the Oncology Diagnostics business unit at Chiron. He then became business head of the Molecular Diagnostics group and Chief Scientific Officer at Bayer Diagnostics. He has served as an advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for more than 10 years. Dr. Urdea is an author on over 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications and has more than 125 issued and pending patents. He received his BS in Biology and Chemistry from Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, Arizona), his PhD in Biochemistry from Washington State University (Pullman, Washington) and had an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California (San Francisco, California).

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Why Some Diagnostics Technologies Succeed While Others Fail: 28 Case Studies

Monday, 21 March 2022 at 18:30

Add to Calendar ▼2022-03-21 18:30:002022-03-21 19:30:00Europe/LondonWhy Some Diagnostics Technologies Succeed While Others Fail: 28 Case StudiesRapid Diagnostic Testing 2022 - SARS-CoV-2 and Beyond in BostonBostonSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Over the last 20 years, Halteres has had the opportunity to work with many diagnostic technology companies (over 200 startups, many large multinational manufacturers) and their investors (angels, venture capitalists, granting agencies, NGOs). In that period, several diagnostics companies that initially appeared to be on a path to success ultimately failed. In 2015, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation asked Halteres to conduct a study to help them understand why some diagnostics companies fail and others succeed. For that purpose, we identified 28 diagnostics companies to include in a systematic study. We sought out and interviewed a number of experts from the investment community, company management teams from successful and failed companies and our Halteres Associates, most of whom have worked in diagnostics companies in various capacities. There were many insights shared and recorded.

The 28 diagnostics companies were classified into one of three groups: 1) “Successes” were defined as those companies that had reached commercial sustainability; 2) “Failures” were either out of business entirely or had their assets sold for small sums at the time of the study; and, 3) “Zombies” indicated companies that we felt were likely to eventually fail. Since the initial study was completed, 7 of the 8 Zombies identified were out of the business by the 4th quarter of 2021.  

The 28 companies were assessed based upon 5 phases of growth and the key objectives required to be successful in each phase. Successes tended to check all of the boxes, while Failures tended to fall short at more than one point, but typically one item appeared to be the most significant problem. Most Failures made early mistakes that resulted in company closure, but in other cases Failures managed to stay in business for many years. Most Zombies were rather long lived (~5-10 years).

We identified a number of best practices used by Successes that our interviewees and we felt could have saved the companies that failed. These factors will be presented and discussed.


Add to Calendar ▼2022-03-21 00:00:002022-03-22 00:00:00Europe/LondonRapid Diagnostic Testing 2022 - SARS-CoV-2 and BeyondRapid Diagnostic Testing 2022 - SARS-CoV-2 and Beyond in BostonBostonSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com