CareDx Congratulates Board Member Dr. Hannah Valantine on ISHLT Lifetime Achievement Award

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., April 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CareDx, Inc. (Nasdaq: CDNA) – The Transplant Company™ focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of clinically differentiated, high-value healthcare solutions for transplant patients and caregivers – today announced that Board member Hannah Valantine MD, a recognized leader in driving heart transplantation innovations and health equity, has received the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT).

The award was presented at the annual ISHLT Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions taking place in Boston and was followed by a lecture in which Dr. Valantine explored the elements of her research that have improved diagnosis and early treatment of acute rejection and cardiac allograft vasculopathy, all leading to paradigm shifts in patient care.

“Dr. Hannah Valantine has been a champion for driving innovations that improve and extend the lives of countless heart transplant recipients, as well as shaping public policy and the guidelines of leading professional societies such as ISHLT,” said Reg Seeto, CEO and President of CareDx. “For the last 20 years, CareDx has shared her vision and focus on developments to improve care, and we have been privileged to work side-by-side with her, enabling us to benefit from her keen insights and clinical expertise. We congratulate her on the richly deserved Lifetime Achievement Award.”

For more than two decades, Dr. Valantine has made a lasting contribution to CareDx innovations. She was a principal investigator for CareDx’s seminal studies defining the clinical utility of AlloMap® Heart, the first non-invasive monitoring service for use in heart transplant patients. This groundbreaking study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2010¹ which helped to pave the way for widespread adoption of AlloMap Heart by heart transplant centers. She was also an inventor on a number of patents for donor-derived cell-free DNA alongside Dr. Stephen Quake at Stanford. These innovations led to the development of AlloSure® and the subsequent introduction of CareDx’s HeartCare, which includes AlloMap and AlloSure. Together, these biomarkers offer a multimodality view of transplanted organ health by providing two separate indicators of immune system activity and allograft health, representing the next wave of groundbreaking innovation to improve heart transplant outcomes.

Dr. Valantine, who is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and the former National Institutes of Health (NIH) inaugural Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity, has dedicated her career to driving innovations in biomarker development for transplant medicine. She has described her pursuit of innovation in heart transplantation, as well as efforts to diversify the biomedical research workforce, as the foundation of her career.

“For Dr. Valantine, advancing the field of transplant medicine means so much more than innovation: It also means unwavering support of like-minded women and men, to foster the next wave of leaders through mentorship. I am incredibly fortunate to call her a trusted mentor, colleague, and friend who has helped support and guide me through my personal and professional journey,” said Kiran Kaur Khush, MD, a transplant cardiologist and Professor of Medicine at Stanford.

Last year, Dr. Valantine joined the CareDx Board of Directors and is a member of the Scientific and Technology Committee. She is also helping to drive CareDx’s efforts to expand and strengthen health equity in transplantation and to help the company do its part to ensure that every patient can have an organ for life, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.

About CareDx – The Transplant Company

CareDx, Inc., headquartered in South San Francisco, California, is a leading precision medicine solutions company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of clinically differentiated, high-value healthcare solutions for transplant patients and caregivers. CareDx offers testing services, products, and digital healthcare solutions along the pre- and post-transplant patient journey and is the leading provider of genomics-based information for transplant patients. For more information, please visit: .

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Reference:

1. Pham MX, Teuteberg JJ, Kfoury AG, et al. Gene-Expression Profiling for Rejection Surveillance after Cardiac Transplantation. N Engl J Med 2010; 362:1890-1900. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa0912965