UNION CITY, Calif.,
April 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/
-- Abaxis, Inc. (NasdaqGS: ABAX), a medical products
company manufacturing point-of-care instruments and consumables for
the medical, research, and veterinary markets worldwide, announced
today changes to its executive management team.
Mr. Alberto "Al" Santa Ines, 68,
chief financial officer and vice president of finance of Abaxis for
the past 15 years will retire effective July
31, 2015. Mr. Ross
Taylor, currently the Company's vice president of business
development and investor relations, will transition into the roles
of chief financial officer and vice president of finance of
Abaxis.
Mr. Santa Ines commented, "In May
of 1999, I joined Abaxis as a consultant, an unknown company with
an innovative product with the potential to revolutionize blood
testing protocol. In 2001, chief executive officer Clint Severson asked me to be the interim CFO
and I gladly accepted the challenge. When I took on the
responsibility Abaxis had $2.0
million cash and $2.5 million
drawn on a line of credit with a bank. Thus, my goal as interim,
and eventually as permanent CFO, was to improve the company's cash
position. In the following years, I would implement some
tough and controversial decisions with that goal in mind. We took
calculated risks and made numerous adjustments. But after years of
hard work, we've grown the company to approximately 700 employees
with more than $133 million in cash,
equivalents and investments and absolutely no debt."
"For the past 15 years," Mr. Santa
Ines continued, "I have had the privilege of being a part of
the success story that is Abaxis. I have watched the company grow
from $13 million sales in 1999 to
more than $200 million in sales in
calendar 2014. I am tremendously proud of the work we've done and
although it's time for me to move on to the next chapter, I have
absolutely no doubt that Abaxis will continue to flourish for many
years to come."
Ross Taylor joined Abaxis as vice
president of business development and investor relations in October
2014. Mr. Taylor has more than 18 years of experience in the
investment and securities industries, as a securities analyst
covering the healthcare sector. Prior to joining Abaxis, Mr. Taylor
most recently served as Senior Vice President, Equity Research
Analyst at CL King & Associates, from 2005 to 2014, covering
Healthcare Equipment and Supplies companies with a focus on the
animal health and dental sectors. Mr. Taylor holds an A.B. degree
in Economics from Duke University and
an MBA with concentrations in accounting and finance from
Columbia Business School.
Clint Severson, chairman and
chief executive officer of Abaxis, Inc., commented, "I am grateful
to Al Santa Ines for his dedication
and contributions in making Abaxis a financially sound company with
a tremendous balance sheet. Al has been intimately involved in
executing on the strategic plan that has positioned Abaxis as one
of the leaders in diagnostic point-of-care sector. I am pleased
that Ross Taylor has agreed to
become our next chief financial officer. I know that Al will be a
great resource to Ross during this transition period in the
upcoming months. I am thankful and confident that Ross will provide
the entire Abaxis team the financial leadership to move forward
from a position of strength as we proceed to the next level of our
development as a leading competitor in the diagnostic point-of-care
business."
Mr. Donald Wood, chief operating
officer of Abaxis, has been promoted to president and chief
operating officer. Mr. Wood has served as chief operating
officer since April 2014 for Abaxis.
Mr. Wood joined Abaxis in October
2007 as vice president of operations and has also served as
chief operations officer from April
2009 to April 2014. From
April 2003 to September 2007, Mr. Wood was the vice president
of operations of Cholestech Corporation, a medical products
manufacturing company that was subsequently acquired by Inverness
Medical Innovations, Inc. in September
2007. From July 2001 to
March 2003, Mr. Wood served as vice
president of Bone Health, a business unit of Quidel Corporation, a
manufacturing and marketer of point-of-care diagnostics, and was
responsible for Bone Health Product Operations, Device Research and
Development, and Sales and Marketing. He also served as Quidel's
vice president of Ultrasound Operations from August 1999 to July
2001. Prior to joining Quidel, Mr. Wood was the director of
Ultrasound Operations for Metra Biosystems Inc., a developer and
manufacturing company of point-of-care products for osteoporosis,
from July 1998 to August 1999 prior to Quidel's acquisition of
Metra Biosystems Inc.
Additional executive promotions include:
- Mr. Michael Wilkerson, formerly
senior director of manufacturing and materials, has been promoted
to vice president of operations;
- Mr. Gregory Bennett, formerly
senior director of manufacturing engineering, has been promoted to
vice president of engineering; and
- Ms. Amrita Sethi, formerly senior director regulatory affairs,
quality assurance, environmental health & safety, has been
promoted to vice president of regulatory affairs & quality
system compliance.
Mr. Severson, continued, "I am pleased with the composition of
this management team. They all bring specialized skill sets that
will help strengthen our organization for continued success. Their
extensive experience and knowledge in the areas of our operations
that they respectively oversee provides us a competitive advantage
in healthcare and animal health industries. Our goal is to
continually build and strengthen the depth and breadth of our
management team allowing us to appropriately manage the growth of
Abaxis into the future. As CEO I remain fully committed to driving
innovation in our product lines and unlocking the full potential of
our point-of-care diagnostic testing solutions to grow our customer
base and drive shareholder value in the years to come."
About Abaxis
Abaxis develops, manufactures, markets
and sells portable blood analysis systems for use in any veterinary
or human patient-care setting to provide clinicians with rapid
blood constituent measurements. The system consists of a
compact, 5.1 kilogram (11.2 pounds), portable analyzer and a series
of single-use plastic discs, called reagent discs, which contain
all the chemicals required to perform a panel of up to 13 tests on
veterinary patients and 14 tests on human patients. The
system can be operated with minimal training and performs multiple
routine tests on whole blood, serum or plasma samples. The
system provides test results in less than 12 minutes with the
precision and accuracy equivalent to a clinical laboratory
analyzer. The veterinary business also provides to the animal
health and research market a line of hematology instruments for
point-of-care complete blood counts (CBC), a specialty instrument
to screen for and detect clotting disorders and to measure equine
fibrinogen levels, a handheld instrument for the rapid assessment
of certain critical care tests and rapid point-of-care tests for
Heartworm infections, Parvovirus, Giardia, Lyme disease, Ehrlichia,
Anaplasma, and FeLV-FIV. For more information, visit
http://www.abaxis.com.
This press release includes, and our conference call will
include, statements that constitute "forward-looking statements"
within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995 (the "Reform Act"), including but not limited to statements
related to the closing and timing of closing of the transaction,
Abaxis' cash position, financial resources and potential for future
growth, market acceptance and penetration of new or planned product
offerings, and future recurring revenues and results of
operations. Abaxis claims the protection of the safe-harbor
for forward-looking statements contained in the Reform Act.
These forward-looking statements are often characterized by the
terms "may," "believes," "projects," "expects," "anticipates," or
words of similar import, and do not reflect historical facts.
Specific forward-looking statements contained in this press release
or in Abaxis' conference call may be affected by risks and
uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those related to
risks related to the transition of its U.S. medical sales to
Abbott, potential excess inventory levels and inventory imbalances
at the company's distributors, losses or system failures with
respect to Abaxis' facilities or manufacturing operations,
fluctuations in quarterly operating results, dependence on sole
suppliers, the market acceptance of Abaxis' products and services,
the continuing development of its products, required United States
Food and Drug Administration clearance and other government
approvals, risks associated with manufacturing and distributing its
products on a commercial scale free of defects, risks related to
the introduction of new instruments manufactured by third parties,
risks associated with competing in the human diagnostic market,
risks related to the protection of Abaxis' intellectual property or
claims of infringement of intellectual property asserted by third
parties and risks related to condition of the United States economy. Readers
should also refer to the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Abaxis'
annual report on Form 10-K, recent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q
and Abaxis' other periodic reports filed with the United States
Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking
statements speak only as of the date the statements were
made. Abaxis does not undertake and specifically disclaims
any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
Contact:
|
Abaxis,
Inc.
|
Lytham Partners,
LLC
|
|
Clint
Severson
|
Joe Dorame, Robert
Blum and Joe Diaz
|
|
Chief Executive
Officer
|
602-889-9700
|
|
510-675-6500
|
|
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SOURCE Abaxis, Inc.