Carrie Eglinton Manner, President and CEO, Orasure Technologies (NASDAQ:OSUR)
Carrie Eglinton Manner was named President and Chief Executive Officer of OraSure Technologies in June 2022 and brings more than 25 years of health care leadership and transformation expertise to the company.
Prior to joining OraSure, Ms. Eglinton Manner was Senior Vice President, Advanced & General Diagnostics Clinical Solutions, at Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX).
In that role, she was responsible for bringing innovative diagnostic solutions to market in the areas of women’s health, neurology, oncology, cardiovascular, metabolic, endocrinology, infectious disease, and immunology testing services, as well as drug monitoring and toxicology.
She also led Quest’s pharmaceutical services, AmeriPath/Dermpath, and international businesses, as well as their molecular genetics team in pioneering next-generation sequencing innovation.
Prior to Quest Diagnostics, Ms. Eglinton Manner served for 20 years in a variety of leadership roles at GE Healthcare (NASDAQ: GEHC), a division of General Electric (GE).
A champion for inclusion and diversity, Ms. Eglinton Manner was co-chair for Quest’s African American Employee Business Network and GE’s Women’s Network.
Ms. Eglinton Manner received a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from University of Notre Dame.
Ms. Manner is consolidating the manufacturing and testing sites for Orasure:
” The diagnostics business is based in the U.S., and it is where we are consolidating manufacturing.
We have a headquarters in the Lehigh Valley in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and that is both headquarters and our U.S. center of excellence — I should say global center of excellence in manufacturing.
Then, we’re the parent company of DNA Genotek, which is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, which is that sample management solutions business that is about device collection and chemistry innovation, that allows collection remotely so that people can, like I said, collect samples and send them in.
So part Pennsylvania, part Ottawa, Canada…
Novosanis is about urine collection and the ability to do first-void volumetric urine collection, which is novel and fits within the scheme of how we want to collect samples remotely.
With Novosanis based in Belgium, what we decided was to consolidate that into our center of excellence in Ottawa, Canada.
So we had moved manufacturing of that into Canada last year, and it was really just a matter of time in terms of driving cost efficiency, process efficiency, and sample collection best practices across the business to then close out Belgium, which we’ve announced we will do by the end of this year.”
The COVID 19 global pandemic accelerated Orasure’s development of a world class automated testing platform.
“Building automation capabilities to address the pandemic need was a huge priority during COVID-19 and we built a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, that we opened in 2022.
It uses very advanced automation technologies and systems which have helped us improve quality and reduce the expense of scrap cost.
It’s helped us enable efficiencies across product lines more broadly because our COVID-19 test shares a platform, for example, with our HIV test.
And so, yes, we’ve used serving the pandemic in order to both create that automation and then translate it back into our portfolio to improve quality and consistency, reliability, while taking out the cost.
Both the site consolidation cost, because it’s allowed us to bring more of that manufacturing into our single facility in the U.S., and just the cost of having processes that were previously manual, which can now be done at high volume.
And it’s also allowing us to insource from Canadian manufacturers.
With our sample management solutions business in Ottawa, we were using third parties for manufacturing those devices.
What we’ve built in Pennsylvania is allowing us to bring that third-party contract manufacturing in-house, and leverage our resources there as well.
When we think about the best practice opportunities, it’s both taking cost out and leveraging capabilities we’ve built to more of our product line.”
Home testing is very relevant for sexually transmitted diseases that patients are reluctant to share with their physicians. Orasure innovation addresses this clinically relevant population.
“Our HIV oral fluid self-test is a hallmark test for us.
It’s the first FDA-cleared oral fluid self-test.
A program like the U.S. CDC’s Together TakeMeHome aims to address underserved populations in the U.S. and help them become aware of their HIV status, which is especially important and actionable since HIV is now preventable with PrEP and addressable with antiretroviral therapy.
The first year of that Together TakeMeHome program had tremendous results and examples where people who had been at risk for HIV now know their status, and now have a pathway to both prevent and/or treat infection, depending on the need.
So I think it’s more opportunities like that which COVID helped bring light to, for public and private partnership…
One of the other exciting partnerships that we shared was to distribute Diagnostics Direct’s test, which is the first FDA-cleared, CLIA-waived syphilis test.
Syphilis is a significant emerging-growth public health issue that happens to be right in that same opportunity to help serve underserved populations.
Many of those with HIV and HCV risk are at risk for syphilis infections.
Being able to partner with Diagnostics Direct to distribute their unique test — we’ve already launched it, we have first orders, we’ve shared that publicly and serve our customers in the U.S. with it — I think it’s just a great example of partnership.”
This innovation from Orasure is also feeding into the lucrative veterinary market.
“We are absolutely adding non-human segments, including animal health, and while those are small volumes today, they represent future growth opportunities.
They build on our scale, our discovery work that we can enable our customers to do in animal health.
Our line of products is in sample management solutions, our DNA Genotek line, which include all-in-one non-invasive kits for the collection, stabilization, and transportation of animal samples for diverse applications, including genetic analysis and microbiome analysis.
Regarding what types of animals, it’s all — barn, field, the clinic or home — we enable animal health through our devices and chemistries, which are uniquely simple, all-in-one, high-quality, and ensure that samples can be tested long after they were collected.
It’s just building onto our strength that we already have in human health.
We have good momentum, and animal health is small volume today, but lots of opportunity.”
To get the full 3,020 word interview with Carrie Eglinton Manner, President and Chief Executive Officer of OraSure Technologies, read it exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
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