Pierre Cassigneul
Pierre Cassigneul is the president and chief executive officer for XDx. Mr. Cassigneul has more than 20 years of senior management experience in the healthcare and medical device industries, both in Europe and the United States, including the global launch of several successful high-tech products. He joined XDx from the consulting firm, Stone Bridge Management LLC, where he was an operating partner. Formerly, as the vice president of diabetes management at Becton Dickinson & Co, he oversaw completion of the product, clinical trials and regulatory submissions. Mr. Cassigneul has held top management positions at Bayer in the diabetes self-testing business unit, where he developed and launched a new patient-monitoring system; Ortho Diagnostic Systems (J&J) in the AIDS and hepatitis business unit, where he launched a complete line of blood screening products; and Abbott Laboratories in the diagnostic division, where he launched the first HIV test for screening the European blood supply. Mr. Cassigneul holds a management degree from the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Reims, France. He is fluent in English, French and German.

Avi Kulkarni
Avi is the Chief Operating Officer of Aviir, Inc., a Palo Alto, CA, based developer of proteomic diagnostic tests that enable diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. The company has raised over $30M of venture funding, and has recently accepted a strategic investment from Pfizer. Aviir’s first test, a multi-protein signature assay for the diagnosis of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), will be commercialized in 2009. Avi joined the founding scientists of Aviir, Inc. in early 2006 from Lumen Therapeutics, where he was CEO. From 2002 to 2005, Avi was CFO and head of Business Development of XDx, Inc, where he was a member of the management team that developed AlloMap Cardiac, the first marketed multi-gene assay for detecting immune activation indicated for cardiac transplant rejection. Avi’s twenty year life sciences career includes management consulting at Booz Allen and Hamilton and Pittiglio Rabin Todd and McGrath, with extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, commercialization processes, and product development. He held management positions at Chiron Corporation where he worked on Business Development, and pricing the Nucleic Acid Test (NAT) for blood screening. As a scientist at American Cyanamid he developed formulations, process transmittals and master batch records for a variety of therapeutics, and wrote monographs for FDA and international submissions. Avi obtained his MBA degree from Stanford University, Ph.D. and MS degrees in Pharmaceutics from Temple University, and BS degree in Pharmacy from the University of Bombay. He is a registered pharmacist.

Jill M. Visor
Jill joined Alquest in 2004. A highly accomplished medical device executive, she oversees Alquest’s rapidly growing presence in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jill joined Alquest from Boston Scientific Corporation, where she had served as Director of Enteryx Clinical Research. Previously Jill had been Vice President, Clinical and Regulatory Affairs for Enteric Medical Technologies; Senior Manager of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs for Metra Biosystems; Senior Development Scientist for Dade-Behring Diagnostics; and Raw Material Chemist for Monoclonal Antibodies, Inc. During her career, Jill established regulatory and clinical strategy and requirements definition for gastroenterology, ultrasound imaging and IVD products. She has planned and managed FDA pre-submission and panel meetings; and developed and obtained clearance/approval for numerous submissions including premarket notifications, IDE applications, PMA applications, IDE supplements and annual reports, and CE Mark technical files. Jill earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Florida State University and a M.S. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Florida.