Microbio Appoints Paul Brennan as Chair of the Board

BRISBANE, Australia, Nov. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Microbio Ltd, the Australian pathogen diagnostics company specialising in innovative molecular diagnostic solutions, has appointed Paul Brennan as Chair of the Board, effective 2nd December 2024.

Paul brings extensive global experience as a Non-Executive Director and biopharmaceutical industry leader. Currently, he serves as Non-Executive Chair of Immuron (ASX: IMC, NASDAQ IMRN), a biopharmaceutical company known for its gastrointestinal health product Travelan®, which is sold across Australia, Canada, and the US.

In an executive career spanning more than 35 years, he has held global senior leadership positions, including serving as CEO of Polynovo from 2015 to 2021. During his tenure, he transformed the company from a valuation of $30 million to a peak market capitalisation of $2 billion, establishing Polynovo as a highly successful Australian medical device company. He has also held senior leadership positions at prominent global organisations such as Smith & Nephew and Ansell.

Paul has experience in technology commercialisation in the healthcare sector and has strong capability in governance, strategy development, new market entry,  business planning and transformation, and business scale up.

Commenting on his appointment, Paul said: "I'm pleased to be joining the Microbio Board at an important time in its commercial maturity. With its first InfectID™ product already on market and a strong pipeline of future products, the focus is now on an active commercial activation phase to drive sales, market adoption and expansion. I look forward to working with the Board and overseeing this growth strategy."

Microbio is at an important intersection of its commercial maturity with its flagship product InfectID™ BSI (Bloodstream Infection), which detects 26 pathogens associated with more than 94% of sepsis cases in less than 3 hours. InfectID™-BSI is currently CE-marked cleared for sale in Europe, United Kingdom and India.

A commercial activation program is underway to drive market adoption and expansion, including an FDA and TGA regulatory pathway.

With the maturing of the business, Microbio has also appointed a Chief Operating Officer expanding its executive leadership team. Mr Neil Verdal-Austin is an experienced global medical device and MedTech leader with 30 years of executive experience, including at SomnoMed Limited.

Microbio's Chief Executive Offer Mr Colin Keating said: "It's an exciting time to be leading Microbio as we focus on the execution of our commercial strategy to position InfectID-BSI as the standard of care for the detection of sepsis, an infection that has devastating consequences on human life."

"We are pleased to have attracted a high calibre Chairman in Paul Brennan, who has significant and relevant experience in the global healthcare industry to support our commercial growth strategy."

"Equally we are pleased to welcome Neil as our COO, an important role as we continue to mature as a business and ensure we have the right internal structure, discipline, and capacity to support our success." 

About Microbio

Microbio is an Australian biotechnology company leveraging its proprietary InfectID™ technology to revolutionize molecular diagnostics. Developed at Queensland University of Technology (QUT),

InfectID™-BSI uses real-time qPCR to identify and quantify pathogens directly from samples. InfectID™-BSI delivers actionable intelligence to clinicians, enabling them to deliver targeted antimicrobial treatment – improving patient outcomes and reducing the emergence of antimicrobial resistant organisms.

The assay detects 26 pathogens associated with more than 94% of sepsis cases in less than 3 hours.

Sepsis is a life-threatening illness caused by the body's reaction to a bloodstream infection. The only treatment is to administer effective antimicrobials to destroy the pathogen causing the infection. For every hour of delay in administering effective antimicrobial treatment, mortality rates increase substantially. The current 'gold standard' method to identify the causative pathogen is a slow, multi-step blood culturing and identification process that takes 11 hours-21 hours for bacterial species and 48 hours for Candida species and has limited sensitivity.

Microbio is advancing a pipeline of diagnostics addressing antimicrobial resistance, meningitis, tuberculosis, and tropical pathogens, with future applications in veterinary, agricultural, and environmental sectors.