The Astute Medical Management Team Click photos to see a biography
Paul H. McPherson, PhD | Chief Executive Officer, Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder
Ya-Ling King | Senior Director, Quality Assurance
Ravi Vijayendran | VP of Product Development and Manufacturing
Paul H. McPherson, PhD Chief Executive Officer, Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder
Paul H. McPherson, Ph.D., is the co-founder as chief scientific officer and currently serves as chief executive officer of Astute Medical, Inc. (a subsidiary of bioMérieux, Inc.), a San Diego-based company identifying and validating new protein biomarkers to serve as the basis for novel diagnostic tests, including the first product (NEPHROCHECK® Test) cleared by the FDA for risk assessment for acute kidney injury.
Dr. McPherson has over 25 years’ experience in research and development. He has over 25 issued U.S. patents in areas ranging from immunoassay platforms to novel biomarker content in a variety of disease areas.
Prior to co-founding Astute Medical in 2007, Dr. McPherson was vice president of research and development at Biosite Inc., a leading diagnostics company acquired by Inverness Medical Innovations. During his 14-year tenure at Biosite, Dr. McPherson led the company’s 85-person research and development team in its hunt for new biomarkers for disease. The team successfully developed and launched eight FDA-cleared products, which included novel diagnostics for congestive heart failure and the first quantitative point-of-care troponin test for myocardial infarction. He played a key role in the development and commercialization of Biosite’s Triage® Meter Platform and the Triage® family of point-of-care immunoassay products.
Dr. McPherson was a post-graduate research physicist at the University of California, San Diego, where he conducted and published research on the biophysics of photosynthesis.
He earned a doctorate in physics (biophysics) from the University of California, San Diego and a bachelor’s in physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Ya-Ling King Senior Director, Quality Assurance
Ya-Ling has over 20 years’ of Quality, Compliance and Regulatory experience with in vitro diagnostics and medical devices. Prior to joining Astute, Ya-Ling was the site Quality Head at Abbott (formerly Alere, Inc.) during and after the Alere/Abbott transition. In this role, she served as the Management Representative responsible for all aspects of the Quality System, led the Quality and Quality Engineering teams to obtain MDSAP/ISO 13285:2016 certification, managed the site QMS integration program, revamped the post-market surveillance and MDR/Vigilance reporting processes. Prior to that she held similar Quality and Regulatory positions with Abbott Medical Optics, St Jude Medical, Beckman-Coulter, I-Flow and Forefront Diagnostics. Ya-Ling holds a B.S. degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine and earned the Regulatory Affairs Certification (RAC) and other quality certifications.
Ravi Vijayendran VP of Product Development and Manufacturing
Dr. Ravi Vijayendran is a leader and expert in the development, technology transfer, and manufacturing of rapid test and point-of-care in-vitro diagnostic products. He has 15 years of experience in the research and development of in-vitro diagnostic and life science products. Dr. Vijayendran leads the development and oversees the manufacturing of Astute Medical’s NephroCheck and other innovative, biomarker-based diagnostic products.
Prior to joining Astute Medical, Dr. Vijayendran held positions at Biosite, Inc. and Alere, Inc., where he led the technical development of cardiovascular immunodiagnostic products from research and development through product commercialization. He also previously held a scientific position with Caliper Technologies, Corp., developing microfluidic products for the life sciences. Dr. Vijayendran holds a doctorate degree in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University.
