Virchow Medical Strengthens Leadership and Implementation Team with Three Key Appointments

• New Chief Strategy Officer, Laboratory Manager, and Field Implementation Scientist expand the company's capabilities in hospital implementation, molecular specimen processing, and precision oncology.
• Company opens new office and lab space.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Virchow Medical, Inc., a company transforming access to precision oncology by enhancing the diagnostic utility of tumor biopsies, today announced three key personnel appointments as it advances broader adoption of its Crow’s Nest® Biopsy Catchment® System and strengthens the laboratory infrastructure supporting its growing network of hospital customers. The company also today announced the opening of its new office and lab space in the Sorrento Valley regional business area of San Diego County.

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Burns C. Blaxall, PhD, FACC, FAHA, FISHR, FAPS Chief Strategy Officer Virchow Medical, Inc.

Following are the new appointments:

• Burns C. Blaxall, PhD, Chief Strategy Officer
• Alma Lastrella, MBA, MT, CLS, Laboratory Manager
• Kayla Nguyen, PhD, has been promoted to Field Implementation Scientist

These appointments strengthen three critical capabilities: integrating new specimen collection workflows into hospital operations, preparing biopsy-derived specimens for molecular testing, and providing hands-on clinical implementation and technical support.

“Appointing key positions on our team, and the opening of new office and lab space, represent an important step in Virchow Medical's transition from clinical innovation to broader commercial implementation," said Alexander Arrow, MD, Chief Executive Officer of Virchow Medical. "Dr. Blaxall brings exceptional experience integrating precision medicine into hospital systems. Ms. Lastrella establishes the laboratory leadership needed to ensure reliable specimen processing and quality. And Dr. Nguyen provides the scientific expertise and hands-on support that make adoption practical for interventional radiology teams."

Dr. Arrow continued, "Together, they strengthen our ability to help hospitals recover valuable cellular material that would otherwise be discarded and make it available for molecular testing, improving outcomes for patients."

"Dr. Rudolf Virchow, known as the father of modern pathology, taught us that understanding disease begins at the cellular level," said Wilfrido Mojica, MD, Chief Technology Officer of Virchow Medical. "Dr. Blaxall, Ms. Lastrella, and Dr. Nguyen each bring expertise that advances our mission of making more cellular material available for precision oncology. Their contributions will help us bridge the gap between biopsy procedures and the molecular information oncologists need to guide treatment."

Burns C. Blaxall, PhD — Chief Strategy Officer

Dr. Blaxall brings more than 30 years of experience spanning translational and clinical research, precision medicine implementation, and the integration of advanced diagnostic technologies and clinical decision support into healthcare systems. Among his academic roles, Dr. Blaxall was Professor and Director of Translational Science at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center from 2012-2019, where he also led the Clinical Research Core and Biorepository, overseeing staff that supported hundreds of clinical studies, including dozens of Phase I–III FDA-regulated clinical trials. Subsequently, he served as Founding Executive Director of Precision Medicine at The Christ Hospital Health Network from 2019-2024, where he developed and implemented an internationally recognized program. This included implementing seven electronic medical record (EMR) interfaces supporting diagnostic ordering, results reporting, and clinical decision-making. The program dramatically improved outcomes while consistently achieving 99th percentile patient satisfaction scores, becoming a model for health-system precision medicine implementation. Dr. Blaxall has authored approximately 100 peer-reviewed publications, delivered more than 250 invited lectures across six continents, and has been elected to fellowships in four professional societies. He has secured tens of millions in extramural research funding, held leadership roles in NIH/NHLBI study sections and currently serves in executive leadership positions for several precision medicine professional societies, as well as on the editorial board for seven peer-reviewed journals.

Of particular relevance to Virchow Medical, Dr. Blaxall established integrated workflows connecting oncologists with molecular reference laboratories for somatic tumor testing. "In that role, I encountered firsthand one of precision oncology's persistent challenges: insufficient biopsy material for comprehensive molecular, genomic and RNA testing,” said Dr. Blaxall. “Virchow’s Biopsy Catchment System, the industry’s first and only, is designed to address this challenge by recovering cellular material from used biopsy needles, creating a companion specimen not exposed to formalin that can be used for advanced molecular analysis without consuming additional diagnostic tissue.”

Alma Lastrella, MBA, MT, CLS — Laboratory Manager

Ms. Lastrella is a California-licensed Clinical Laboratory Scientist (Generalist) with more than 25 years of experience in laboratory operations, quality management, and regulatory compliance across hospital, reference, and molecular diagnostic laboratories. As Laboratory Manager, she will oversee personnel, operations, and quality systems supporting DNA and RNA extraction from Virchow Companion Specimens (VCSs), along with specimen processing, cataloging, storage, and retrieval within the Virchow Vault™ biorepository. Her expertise includes clinical laboratory startup, Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certification, California Department of Public Health (CDPH) licensing, College of American Pathologists (CAP) accreditation, workflow development, equipment qualification, and method validation, verification, and implementation. She has led laboratory teams, managed resources, and implemented systems to improve operational efficiency. Through her leadership and consulting work, Ms. Lastrella has helped multiple laboratories achieve and maintain inspection readiness and scale specimen preparation operations within regulated clinical environments. Her appointment strengthens Virchow Medical’s infrastructure and supports consistent, quality-controlled specimen processing as the company expands its hospital subscription program.

Kayla Nguyen, PhD — Field Implementation Scientist

Dr. Nguyen has been promoted to Field Implementation Scientist, effective November 5, 2026, reflecting her expanding responsibilities in hospital implementation and molecular research. In this role, she will divide her time between supporting hospital customers and advancing laboratory processes, research and development. Working directly with interventional radiologists and hospital staff, Dr. Nguyen will provide training and technical support for incorporating the Crow’s Nest Biopsy Catchment System into existing biopsy workflows. Within the Virchow Vault laboratory, she will design and conduct validation, specimen stability, and time-course studies supporting the company's molecular specimen processing and storage capabilities while also expanding our research pipeline. Dr. Nguyen is a molecular biology scientist with extensive experience in quantitative PCR assay development, molecular cloning, DNA and RNA purification, and next-generation sequencing analysis. Her background includes research in the Naoki Oshimori Laboratory at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), as well as experience at iXCells Biotechnologies and Janssen Pharmaceuticals. She brings expertise in assay optimization, experimental design, data integrity, and documentation within regulated biotechnology environments.

About Virchow Medical, Inc.

Virchow’s mission is to unlock critical molecular data for every cancer patient and enable precision medicine to save more lives. It does this by providing its hospital subscribers with a monthly supply of Crow’s Nest Biopsy Catchment System units, which are used after core needle tumor biopsies to create Virchow Companion Specimens (VCSs). The company stores the VCSs for its customers in a unique biorepository, the Virchow Vault, housed in a CAP-accredited facility. As a result, oncologists can log on to www.virchowvault.com at any time after their patient’s biopsy and order genomic sequencing or other molecular testing without requesting their hospital’s pathology department to provide any of the tissue block. In an era which Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) tissue is limited and often insufficient, this ability to order sequencing using only high-quality material that is normally discarded on used needles is designed to provide every biopsy patient the potential opportunity to be treated with precision medicine targeted therapy.

Virchow Medical is an EvoNexus portfolio company.

For more information, visit www.virchowmed.com or follow Virchow Medical on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/virchowmed/.

Crow’s Nest®, Biopsy Catchment®, Virchow Vault™, Precision Can’t Waste™, More from the core™, and Virchow Companion Specimen™ are trademarks of Virchow Medical, Inc.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261105007309/en/

Media Contact
Carolyn Holck
Director of Public Relations
Virchow Medical, Inc.
[email protected]
+1 (858) 254-0440

Source: Virchow Medical, Inc.

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