Session Abstract – PMWC 2026 Silicon Valley
The PMWC 2026 Data Applications in Clinical Diagnostics Showcase will provide a 15-30 minute time slot for selected organizations, including commercial companies, clinical testing labs, and medical research institutions, to present their latest advancements, insights, applications, and technologies to an audience of clinicians, leading investigators, academic institutions, pharma and biotech, investors, and potential clients. We will learn about new technologies and findings that promise expedited, cost-effective, and accurate clinical diagnosis for early disease detection, treatment decisions, and disease prevention.
- Clinical Dx/Oncology (including Liquid Biopsy)
- Clinical Dx/Cardio Vascular
- Clinical Dx/Neurodegenerative
Confirmed Presenting Companies:
Speaker Profile
Ph.D., CEO & Chairman, Novigenix SA
Biography
Brian Hashemi is cofounder and Executive Chairman of Novigenix. A former NASA Principal Investigator and Researcher, Dr. Hashemi has extensive background in healthcare technology development and commercialization and has been an Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine where he began his affiliation in the National Space Biomedical Research Institute. Brian holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Cornell University in New York, and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from the Wharton School in Philadelphia.
Clinical Dx Showcase:
Novigenix SA
Novigenix is a precision oncology biotech with a proprietary platform LITOseek optimized for mapping the response of the immune system to onset and progression of disease to provide actionable insights and precision solutions for optimization of patient’s therapeutic journey.
Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Director, Population Health, Olink
Biography
Cindy is passionate about innovation to make genetic and multi omic technologies easier and cheaper to measure. She sees such innovation as pivotal to lower the barrier of entry for implementing scalable, reproducible solutions advancing individualized medicine and health equity. In over 14 years at Illumina and together with customers, she helped develop solutions to advance the understanding of genetic risk and holds several USDA Excellence in Technology Transfer awards for her work leading Illuminas Consortia Program. She joined Olink in 2020 soon after the launch of the Explore Platform that leverages next generation sequencing as a high throughput proteomic readout. Ask her about how high throughput proteomics are helping translate the impact our genetics has on more real time health.
Speaker Profile
Director of Business, VPIX Medical
Biography
Heejoon Um is an experienced innovator in the field of medical technology, known for driving progress at the intersection of real-time diagnostics and surgical care. With a deep understanding of global healthcare systems, he has spearheaded international expansion strategies and clinical collaborations across North America, Europe, and Asia. Heejoon has played a central role in bringing disruptive imaging technologies to market, improving surgical precision and patient outcomes. He actively engages with key opinion leaders, regulatory experts, and industry stakeholders to accelerate the adoption of transformative solutions. Recognized for his strategic insight and cross-cultural expertise, Heejoon continues to build bridges between cutting-edge science and clinical application, reshaping the future of intraoperative Imaging.
Talk
The Role of Intraoperative Histopathologyduring Cancer Surgery
This talk will introduce VPIX Medicals real-time imaging platform, cCeLL, which delivers intraoperative histopathology without frozen sections. By enabling immediate, high-resolution cellular visualization at the surgical site, cCeLL enhances intraoperative decision-making, improves margin assessment, and supports maximal safe resection across a range of tumor types.
Clinical Dx Showcase:
VPIX Medical
VPIX Medical is a medical device company specializing in real-time, in vivo histopathology imaging. Its flagship platform, cCeLL, enables surgeons to visualize cellular structures during surgery, enhancing diagnostic precision and improving surgical outcomes.
Speaker Profile
M.D., CEO and Co-founder, Inmedix
Biography
Andrew Holman is a clinical rheumatologist who discovered and published the role of dopamine agonists (Parkinson's disease medications) as a leading treatment for fibromyalgia (FM). This work, combined with the immunology training of rheumatology, led to exploration of how stress impacts autoimmune disease onset, activity, treatment response and potential remission. The concept is called immuno-autonomics and it is revolutionizing how doctors address stress biology, first in autoimmune disease, and next, in other diseases adversely impacted by stress.
Talk
Stress as a missing vital sign
Vital signs have widespread integration into health and stress should be included. Stress is biology, controlled by the autonomic nervous system (ANS) within the brain. Divided into two continuously competing components, the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) and parasympathetic (restrestorative) jockey for influence of nearly every human physiology.Finally, it can be measured with FDA-cleared precision.
Clinical Dx Showcase:
Inmedix
CloudHRV from Seattle-based Inmedix is FDA-cleared, reimbursed, 5-min, next-generation heart rate variability (HRV) in the clinic on a high-fidelity ECG platform. It is first and only to bring discrete indices of sympathetic (fight-or-flight) and parasympathetic (rest/restorative) state to the clinic as a missing vital sign.
Speaker Profile
M.D., FACP, Center Associate Director, Professor, Medical College of Wisconsin
Biography
Dr. Kurzrock is a boardcertified medical oncologist and a renowned expert in precision medicine. She developed one of the worlds largest Phase I clinical trial programs while at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Kurzrock also founded the UCSDs Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy, focusing on genomicallydriven therapy as well as precision immunotherapy, especially in rare cancers. Dr. Kurzrock brought the first transcriptomic study to the clinic in an international setting spanning five countries (WINTHER), as well as the first Nof1 study of individually customized combination therapy (IPREDICT). Dr. Kurzrock received her MD from the University of Toronto, Canada. She has 900 PubMed publications, an Hindex of 140, has been named to the lists of most highly cited scientists in the world. She has a uniquely strong record of competitive funding with 100 million dollars in lifetime funding, and has overseen early development of multiple drugs that are now FDA approved.
Clinical Dx Showcase:
Medical College of Wisconsin
Speaker Profile
Ph.D., CEO, GeneCentric Tx
Biography
Dr. Milburn received his Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School for his post-doctoral work. Dr. Milburn has over 25 years of experience in biotech and pharmaceutical companies including over 20 years in senior management research positions. Dr. Milburn has published over 100 scientific articles on technology, research and development in the life sciences. At GeneCentric, Dr. Milburn is responsible for the RNA-based diagnostics development and commercialization.
Clinical Dx Showcase:
GeneCentric Therapeutics
GeneCentric develops and commercialize next generation oncology diagnostics and companion diagnostics built on RNA gene expression signatures in partnership with Biopharma companies and commercial reference labs.
Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, Watchmaker Genomics
Biography
After a short-lived career as a coffee analytical chemist, Craig graduated with a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from Colorado State University in 2021 and immediately joined Watchmaker Genomics as a scientist in enzyme development. He has since transitioned into applications development, focusing mainly on new and existing epigenetics-related projects.
Talk
Positive methylation readout fuels clinically relevant applications
The TAPS+ positive methylation readout preserves DNA integrity and base complexity. This talk will highlight how direct detection of methylated cytosines supports integrated methylation and genomic variant profiling from a single library, with applications spanning tissue-of-origin studies, tumor profiling, and low-input clinically relevant samples such as FFPE and cfDNA.
Clinical Dx Showcase:
Watchmaker Genomics
Watchmaker Genomics specializes in advanced enzymology to develop precision tools for life sciences. We utilize a platform that integrates computational biology, protein engineering, and enzyme production to create high-performance tools for next-generation sequencing and advanced applications, including rare variant detection, ctDNA analysis, transcriptomics, and epigenetics.
Speaker Profile
JD, MBA, Partner, DFJ Growth
Biography
Justin Kao is an entrepreneur and investor. Prior to DFJ Growth, he co-founded Helix, serving as founding CEO and later as chief business officer. DFJ Growth led the Series B in 2018.Justin loves working with founders who operate at the intersection of different disciplines. In particular, he is excited by companies that use data and AI to improve healthcare. He also focuses on how AI can accelerate the hard sciences, including chemistry, physics, materials, and beyond. Finally, Justin believes AI will reshape the enterprise, with particular interest in finance, legal, HR, IT, and operations.Earlier in his career, Justin was a partner with Khosla Ventures and an investor at Warburg Pincus. He is a lifelong Lakers and Dodgers fan and enjoys reading science fiction and fantasy. On weekends, he can be found treasure hunting at Costco, indulging in a boba, or chasing around his two children (one human, one canine).
Talk
Investing in the Next Generation of Precision Medicine
Even as technology advances, fundraising for startups in diagnostics and precision medicine has been challenging, particularly beyond seed rounds. What do growth investors look for in the age of AI? How do tech firms think vs. biotech firms?
Clinical Dx Showcase:
DFJ Growth
DFJ Growth is a VC firm based in Silicon Valley singularly focused on helping founders grow and scale. The firm is known for investments in companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, Coinbase, Unity, and Tesla, and has invested in Lifetech companies like Neuralink, Cellares, Cellanome, Paradigm Health, Delfi, and Osmind.
Speaker Profile
M.D., CEO, Virchow Medical
Biography
Dr. Arrow co-founded Virchow Medical in 2023, whose mission is to allow hospitals to unlock critical molecular data for every cancer patient, enabling precision medicine to save more lives. The companys concordance studies are ongoing in six U.S. medical centers. He has served as its President and CEO since inception. From 2019 through 2022, Dr. Arrow was the CFO of Carlsmed, an orthopedic implant manufacturer that now trades on Nasdaq: CARL with a $400 million market cap. Previously, as the CFO of Arstasis, he helped that company raise $130 million in investment capital. He served on the Board of Paragonix Technologies, which in 2024 Getinge AG acquired for $477 million. Before joining these and other operating companies, Dr. Arrow had been the head of Medical Technology Equity Research at Lazard and Wedbush Morgan Securities. He is an inventor on eight issued U.S. patents.
Talk
Identifying More Patients Carrying Actionable Drug Targets
Around 50% of positive cancer diagnosis biopsies get genomic sequencing, yet most oncologists would prefer that they all do. In this talk, we'll show how residual cells on used biopsy needles are being collected to allow more patients to be sequenced, while generating new revenue for hospitals and labs.
Clinical Dx Showcase:
Virchow Medical, Inc.
Virchow Medical makes the Crow's Nest Biopsy Catchment System and Operates the Virchow Vault Liquid Companion Specimen Biorepository. We allow hospitals to unlock critical molecular data for every cancer patient, enabling precision medicine to save more lives without relying on the limited tissue sample, while generating testing volume for clinical labs and data for targeted therapy development.
