Vermillion, a bio-analytical solutions company focused on gynecologic disease, recently outlined its expanded strategy for driving improvements in the personalized management of gynecologic health and becoming a leading diagnostic innovator in gynecologic informatics. In support of this mission, the company has named three charter members of its strategic and medical advisory board.

To date, Vermillion has focused on one "leg" of the clinical decision tree that begins with hundreds of thousands of women seeking treatment for non-specific gynecologic symptoms including pain, infertility or irregular menstrual cycles. Vermillion hopes to aid clinicians in the triage of these women into effective and cost efficient treatment pathways that address both malignant and benign gynecologic disease.

"Just as Vermillion succeeded in identifying the OVA1 algorithm which pre-operatively predicts ovarian cancer status, similar tools can be used to predict and diagnose the other conditions found in what we call the 'confusion matrix'," said Dr. Judith Wolf, Vermillion's chief medical officer. “Early detection and diagnosis translates into quality of care, and aids in cost-effective, targeted, management of patients.”

"We now view informatics and care pathways, not simply biomarkers, as part of the formula for achieving our goal of optimizing care for women who are facing serious malignant and benign gynecologic conditions," said Dr. Donald Munroe, Vermillion's chief scientific officer. “To that end, we plan to expand our predictive tools to include other modalities, clinical risk factors, and patient informatics in our calculus. These proprietary predictive methods will use newly discovered correlations and algorithms … to better diagnose and therefore effectively treat women.”

The Strategic & Medical Advisory Board (SMAB) will be comprised of experts in a diverse range of subjects including gynecologic oncology, clinical chemistry, data science, reimbursement and medical policy, and patient advocacy. The SMAB will be co-led by Vermillion's Wolf and Munroe.

Its charter members are:

• Dr. Daniel Chan, professor of pathology, oncology, urology and radiology, director of clinical chemistry division, department of pathology, and the director, Center for Biomarker Discovery and Translation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

• Dr. Robert E. Bristow holds the Philip J. DiSaia chair in gynecologic oncology and is director of gynecologic oncology and vice-chair for clinical affairs and quality improvement at the University of California, Irvine.

• Calaneet Balas, CEO of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (OCNA), has more than 15 years experience in development and strategic planning. She previously worked at the Arthritis Foundation as the chief strategy officer of the Mid-Atlantic Region and as president/CEO of the Arthritis Foundation's Metro DC Chapter.