BrainScope announced the appointment of Susan Hertzberg as chief executive officer. This is the 4th equity-backed venture that Hertzberg will helm.
She is a proven commercial stage leader with an impressive track record of bringing innovative products and services to market and profitably scaling and delivering exceptional market growth.
In her new role, Hertzberg will drive the global strategy and commercialization of BrainScope’s traumatic brain injury (TBI) and concussion tools in the traditional healthcare, military and sports arenas and will expand the platform capabilities of its signature product BrainScope One to include objective assessments for brain diseases like depression and Alzheimer’s.
“BrainScope is growing rapidly given the high demand and need for non-invasive, point of care FDA-Cleared medical devices to objectively assess concussion and mild TBI,” said Founding CEO Michael Singer, who will move into the Executive Chairman role. “I am thrilled to have Susan join us and apply her unique talents and experience to scale our business and make these tools ubiquitous in the market. Her mission-driven, patient-centric approach and dynamic leadership style is a great fit and will help BrainScope reach its full potential for this very large market opportunity,” added Singer.
“I am delighted to join BrainScope at this important time. The Company’s BrainScope One device is a powerful new non-invasive tool that helps clinicians objectively assess TBI and concussion while helping patients avoid unnecessary and costly emergency room visits and CT scanning and radiation. With the company’s focus on innovation and addressing core market needs, the opportunity to positively impact the lives of more than 75 million people globally who suffer brain injuries each year is powerful. With BrainScope’s breakthrough science, focus on innovation, and outstanding employees, I have no doubt of our future success,” stated Hertzberg.
A recent study conducted at Washington University demonstrated that integrating BrainScope One into the decision-making process for CT referrals would have led to a significant reduction of unnecessary CT scans by nearly one-third. Importantly, this decrease in CT use and its associated radiation would be achieved without incurring any false negative cases (100% sensitivity in the study). This study confirmed BrainScope’s overall CT referral rate reduction results published by Huff and colleagues (2017)1 in a retrospective study of the data collected in the BrainScope FDA validation study2.
In March, BrainScope announced it had concluded both algorithm development and clinical validation studies in adolescent and young adult populations using its objective, EEG-based technology. The purpose of the studies was to create and validate an objective, personalized capability for assessment of concussion and readiness to return to activities in males and females between the ages of 13-25. The studies conducted from 2015 through 2019 at 52 clinical sites included nearly 1,700 patients and healthy controls, with over 4,000 evaluations. Funding sources for the studies included a $9.9 million research contract from the U.S. Department of Defense, award funding from the NFL-GE Head Health Challenge (in which BrainScope was a two-time awardee), and BrainScope private funding.
About Susan Hertzberg
Hertzberg has 30 years of diversified healthcare diagnostics, products and services experience. Most recently, she served as CEO of Prelude Fertility, a comprehensive fertility services company where in just two years, she built the fastest growing, largest fertility network in the country. Prior to Prelude, Hertzberg scaled two other diagnostics products and services companies and achieved outstanding growth and returns for her investors. She honed her skills earlier in her career at companies like Quest Diagnostics, Oxford Health Plans and Abbott. Her commitment to making a difference in the lives of patients and improving healthcare more generally has been the hallmark of her career. Hertzberg received the Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of The Year™ award in 2014 as the New England winner and a national finalist. She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, The Boston Business Journal, and the nationally syndicated radio show, “The CEO Show with Robert Reiss.” She received an MBA from Columbia University, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for BreastCancer.org and is a strategic advisor to the Founder’s Affiliate Board of the American Heart Association.
Statement from the BrainScope Board of Directors on Michael Singer
“Michael has led the company for more than a decade beginning with when the company was in the conceptual stages. During this time, he pioneered the creation of the first FDA-cleared product for traumatic brain injury, including concussion. He uniquely partnered with the Department of Defense through 8 DOD research contracts to develop the technology with a focus on multi-modal and multi-parameter capabilities that would address the full spectrum of brain injury. Michael also guided the company through over 20 clinical studies, 7 FDA clearances, 28 peer-reviewed publications, 120 issued and pending patents, and the creation of next-generation products to be introduced to the market in the near-term. We are pleased to have Michael continue with the company in his new role as Executive Chairman and look forward to the meaningful contribution we know he will make,” said outgoing Chairman Dan Moore.
