Healthcare >> CEO Interviews >> November 15, 2010
Dr. Eugene Seymour, M.D., is CEO of NanoViricides, Inc. He began practicing medicine in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills in the late 1960s. In late 1981, he began treating patients with a strange new disease affecting primarily the gay population. In 1986, the U.S. government asked him to establish a testing laboratory and run a large-scale surveillance program for HIV prevalence in the Hispanic population of Los Angeles. His laboratory ended up testing more than 50,000 people. Because of his belief that prevention, in the absence of a cure, was critical to stem the rising tide of HIV infections, he founded a company, now called Stat-Sure, Inc., in 1989. Dr. Seymour raised the capital and oversaw the development of a rapid HIV antibody blood test, the HemaStrip. In 1993, as Chief Executive Officer, he took the Stat-Sure public as a Nasdaq company. Under his direction, the company conducted research in Africa, Asia, South America and North America. The Hema
Strip was approved in a number of countries, including Canada, Great Britain and Vietnam. Seymour left the company in 1996 to run a nonprofit foundation, which funded both testing and training programs for health workers in Asia and Africa. He became a consultant to the UNAIDS and was sent to a number of different countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia) to interact with local physicians and assist them in setting up HIV-testing programs. Two years later, he became Director of Strategic Alliances at a medical education startup called medschool.com, which was later acquired by a group of investors. Profile
TWST: Would you begin with a brief historical sketch of the company and a picture of the things you're doing at the present time?
Dr. Seymour: Certainly. We started this company five years ago. It was
