Perlegen, a leader in correlating genetic variation to predisposition to disease and drug response through development of genetic tests, announced today that it has hired Mark J. Ostrowski as senior vice president of sales. In this newly created position, Mr. Ostrowski will bring his deep experience with Perlegen’s commercial targets to reach and expand the market for the company’s lead product, MammaPLUS™, a breast cancer risk stratifier due to launch in mid-2009, as well as other products to follow.

“Perlegen is moving quickly toward bringing an important diagnostic tool to physicians and women assessing breast cancer risk, and Mark is uniquely qualified to create programs that will effectively reach those groups, as he has worked with the women’s health and oncology diagnostic communities for well over a decade,” said Bryan Walser, M.D., CEO of Perlegen. “Bringing Mark on board is a significant step forward in our drive to commercialization. We’re keenly looking forward to working together to achieve our goals of improving patient treatment outcomes through additional diagnostic information.”

Mr. Ostrowski has built his career in the field of launching and commercializing complex molecular diagnostics, with increasing levels of responsibility in sales, marketing, and operations. He joins Perlegen from GenVault Corporation, a life sciences company where he was vice president of global sales and marketing. Mr. Ostrowski spent more than a decade with Myriad Genetic Laboratories, a publicly traded company that provides genetic susceptibility testing and hereditary cancer risk assessment services focused on oncology and women’s health. Most recently at Myriad, Mr. Ostrowski spent five years as director of sales operations, leading a sales organization of more than 200 people that generated more than $200 million in revenue and making innovations that helped the company achieve consistent growth rates of more than 50 percent. Earlier, during six years with Dianon Systems, Inc., an anatomic pathology and oncology diagnostics company now part of Laboratory Corporation of America, Mr. Ostrowski led initiatives targeting national and regional insurance companies, payers, and managed healthcare organizations, among other sales responsibilities. Mr. Ostrowski holds a bachelor of arts degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University.