CAMDEN, NJ – Coriell Life Sciences (CLS), a for-profit spin-off venture of the renowned Coriell Institute for Medical Research, claims IBM's prestigious global "Global Entrepreneur of the Year" award for 2014.
Selected from an elite group of eight international finalists winnowed from an original group of 1,200 companies worldwide, the award distinguishes CLS as the world's top IBM-partner startup organization.
"We are incredibly humbled to receive this honor," says Scott Megill, president and CEO of CLS. Megill and parent company CEO, Michael Christman, PhD, spent the past week in San Francisco, representing CLS and meeting with venture capitalists, technology leaders and influential industry mentors.
A cutting-edge enterprise invested in the exploding field of personalized medicine, CLS has developed a proprietary system for securely storing sequenced genetic data, constructed an interpretation service designed to more accurately determine drug efficacy, and facilitated a seamless exchange between healthcare providers, patients and physicians. Megill delivered a key presentation to a large audience of business and tech experts and detailed a vision of more optimized and efficient clinical care that could serve to reduce billions of dollars misspent on ineffective and often dangerous drug treatments.
"Personalized medicine is on the verge of changing the entire medical paradigm," says Megill. "It's our mission to ensure doctors have the tools they need to arrive at the most optimal health solutions. We're incredibly excited to move this mission forward with the support of a top-flight organization like IBM."
Eight finalists from Latin America, Europe, Australia and North America convened in San Francisco for the global stage of the IBM Entrepreneur competition. CLS had been named IBM's North American "Entrepreneur of the Year" in September, which led to this ultimate finale.
"This is a major success for our goal of transitioning to a genome-informed medical model," says Dr. Michael Christman, president and CEO of Coriell Institute and a founder of CLS. "The next generation of significant health discoveries requires great innovation, and Coriell continues to lead the way."
CLS is a spinoff of the internationally-renowned Coriell Institute for Medical Research, a non-profit biomedical research institution dedicated to the study of the human genome. Coriell Institute is a forward-thinking thought leader in the discussion around personalized medicine.
For more information about the competition, visit:
About Coriell Institute
Coriell Institute for Medical Research is dedicated to studying the human genome to improve the lives of healthcare consumers. Coriell is an independent, non-profit biomedical research center based in Camden, New Jersey since 1953. Coriell is a pioneer in genomics, examining the utility of genetic information in clinical care through the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative (CPMC) research study (cpmc.coriell.org). Coriell is also exploring the promise of induced pluripotent stem cells – stem cells created from skin or blood – and their role in disease research and drug discovery. Additionally, Coriell continues to be recognized as the world's leading biobank, distributing biological samples and offering custom research and biobanking services to scientists around the globe. For more information, visit www.coriell.org or follow @Coriell_Science on Twitter.
About Coriell Life Sciences
Coriell Life Sciences (CLS) is a for-profit spin-off venture of the Coriell Institute for Medical Research. By developing a proprietary infrastructure designed to manage the storage and expert interpretation of genomic data, CLS is focused on empowering physicians to apply genetic analyses at the point-of-care. For more information, visit www.coriell.com or follow @CoriellLife on Twitter.
