According to Deborah Kilpatrick, senior vice president and Tech engineering grad (BS ESM ’89, MS ME ’94, PhD ME ‘96), "This decision is extraordinary news for the company and for our providers and their patients, as it reflects both the strength of our evidence and broadening patient access to Corus CAD."  Kilpatrick now serves on the Advisory Boards for the Georgia Institute of Technology and for its College of Engineering.

With a simple blood draw, Corus CAD can safely, accurately and conveniently help primary care clinicians and cardiologists assess whether or not a stable non-diabetic patient’s symptoms are due to obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD), enabling many patients to avoid unnecessary invasive testing and exposure to imaging-related radiation risks or imaging agent intolerance.

Kilpatrick has responsibilty for product marketing, managed care marketing and sales, customer service, public relations and related commercial operations. CardioDx is a genomic diagnostics company that serves primary care and cardiology healthcare providers with clinically-validated genomic tests for patients with cardiovascular symptoms. She joined CardioDx in 2006 as Vice President, Market Development, with responsibility for building the product marketing and reimbursement capabilities of the company.  In 2010, the company was recognized in the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards and in TIME Magazine's Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of the year for its Corus CAD product, the first-ever genomic diagnostic for obstructive coronary artery disease.

"While the Corus CAD test was recognized by TIME Magazine as a top 10 medical breakthrough in 2010, the year the PREDICT validation study was published, fulfilling Medicare reimbursement criteria is now a major step forward," said Eric Topol, M.D., Principal Investigator of the PREDICT trial, Chief Academic Officer at Scripps Health and Professor of Genomics at The Scripps Research Institute. "Utilization of this gene expression test could lead to avoidance of a large number of unnecessary cardiac catheterization procedures and scans involving radiation."

The test has been clinically validated in multiple independent patient cohorts, including two prospective, multicenter U.S. trials, PREDICT and COMPASS. Additionally, a retrospective, multicenter chart review study and the prospective IMPACT trial at Vanderbilt University demonstrated that Corus CAD use yielded significant and clinically relevant changes in patient management decisions in both primary care and cardiology settings.