Medical software startup Optellum appoints Jason Pesterfield as CEO to drive commercial growth in the US

Pesterfield's appointment is another boost for Optellum, which recently achieved a number of key milestones that form a strong foundation for the commercial scale-up of the company. The rapidly growing medtech startup achieved the world's first FDA clearance for AI in lung cancer diagnosis, rolled out the technology with an initial wave of US customers and the first US patients diagnosed using the Optellum AI,  and recently formed a strategic collaboration with the Lung Cancer Initiative at Johnson & Johnson, the world's largest healthcare company.

Jason Pesterfield, formerly president and CEO of Veran Medical Technologies, a leader in image-guided lung cancer diagnosis, was hand-picked as a successor by Václav Potěšil PhD, Optellum's founder and CEO since the company's inception in 2016. Pesterfield brings 25 years of leadership experience in the medtech sector. With leadership roles at Stryker and Veran, he has led rapid sales growth of advanced medical devices now used by surgeons, pulmonologists, and radiologists in thousands of hospitals.

Optellum was founded by Václav Potěšil, Lyndsey Pickup, Timor Kadir, Professor Sir Mike Brady, and Jérôme Declerck, who met at the University of Oxford's world-renowned AI lab. Optellum raised seed funding and commenced operations in 2017, securing more than $16 million from investors and grants. Potěšil will remain on Optellum's board of directors and executive team as chief business officer, leading partnerships with biopharma, molecular diagnostics, and therapy device companies to drive a key second pillar of Optellum's business.

"It took us almost a year to find the right successor who shares our vision and has the right expertise to take Optellum on to the next stage of growth," said Potěšil. "I am really excited to work with Jason, to make Optellum's platform available to every clinician in the USA and around the world, and to help them diagnose their lung cancer patients as early as possible. With Jason on board, I can focus on advancing Optellum's vision to transform early lung cancer therapy through partnerships that harness the power of AI software combined with molecular diagnostics, robotics and interventional devices, and drugs."

Oklahoma native Jason Pesterfield is the third generation of a farming family in Paul's Valley and played college football for the Nebraska Corn Huskers in three national championships. He studied at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and attended the Advanced Leadership Academic at Harvard before entering the growing field of medical technology. Pesterfield was with Stryker Corporation for 17 years, spanning a variety of leadership positions, including global vice president and general manager of the Surgical Navigation business. At Veran Medical Technologies he commercialized the SPiN Thoracic Navigation System to reach over $30 million in annual sales. Veran was acquired by Olympus Corp. for $340 million in December 2020.

Speaking about his new role, Pesterfield said: "I am thrilled to join such a talented team at such an incredibly exciting time. Not only does the Optellum technology address the massive clinical problem of early lung cancer diagnosis; I see a huge commercial opportunity to build Optellum into an even more successful business and a real game-changer for millions of lung cancer patients and clinicians around the world."

www.optellum.com