LabStyle Innovations Appoints Veteran Sales Manager for Scandinavia
LHAKim Sutton Golodetz, 212-838-3777orBruce Voss, 310-691-7100@LHA_IR_PRorLabStyle Innovations Corp.Dr. Oren FuerstChairman/CEO
an emerging leader in the mobile health (mHealth) sector anddeveloper of the Dario™ smartphone-based diabetes management system, announces that medical device and internet sales veteran Mikael Salo has been appointed as LabStyle’s Managing Director of Sales for Scandinavia.
Based in LabStyle’s new Nordic regional headquarters in Helsinki, Mr. Salo will be responsible for the direct sales and marketing of Dario in Finland, while supporting web-based marketing programs and overseeing a distribution network to be assembled in Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Denmark.
The commercial launch of Dario in Europe is pending CE mark clearance for the product, which is expected in the coming months. LabStyle also expects to seek regulatory approval for Dario in the U.S. and other jurisdictions during 2013.
Mr. Salo is an experienced international sales and business management executive with 16 years of high technology sales and marketing experience, primarily in the medical device and biotechnology industries. He has extensive experience with web-based marketing and social media programs. His work includes local start-ups and global leaders, including Olympus Medical Endoscopy, Smith & Nephew and Johnson & Johnson. While at Johnson & Johnson, he held the position of Country Sales Manager, Finland for LifeScan, a leading provider of blood glucose monitoring systems for diabetics. While at LifeScan, he grew sales and profits to have it become the top Johnson & Johnson business unit in Finland.
“We are very excited that Mikael has joined LabStyle. Dario is a modern, Internet-driven product, and our strategy will rely in large part on direct-to-consumer Internet-based marketing campaigns and sales efforts. Mikael’s considerable expertise in medical device direct sales and the use of social networking to influence consumer behavior is a perfect fit for our overall plans for Dario, particularly as they relate to bringing Dario to the approximately 750,000 diabetics across Scandinavia,” said Dr. Oren Fuerst, LabStyle’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Our research shows that Finnish consumers are highly web-savvy and are likely to order diabetes test strips online, making that country ideal for capturing higher margin direct sales of Dario. In addition, most of the relevant Nordic population has smartphones, thus providing a ready market for mobile health applications such as ours.”
Mikael Salo commented, “I am delighted to be playing a role in bringing this novel and advanced product to market. I am very impressed with the Dario device and system, which I believe has the potential to fundamentally change the landscape of the market for self-monitoring of blood glucose. As a Type 1 diabetic myself, I fully understand the challenges of living a healthy and productive life with diabetes, and I will leverage this personal experience as well as my professional background in launching and creating awareness of Dario and helping to drive sales.”
LabStyle Innovations Corp. has developed and is commercializing a patent-pending technology that seeks to bring laboratory-testing capabilities to consumers in a distinctive, easy-to-use and affordable way through the use of smartphones such as iPhones and Androids, and other mobile devices. LabStyle’s initial product is Dario™, an integrated medical device and software system addressing the market for patient self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) products, which is estimated to exceed $10 billion worldwide. Dario is a comprehensive, patent-pending system that combines an all-in-one medical device consisting of an integrated lancet (to obtain a blood sample), a device-specific disposable test strip cartridge and a smartphone-driven glucose reader adaptor, with a smartphone app and cloud-based data services. LabStyle is pursuing patent applications in multiple jurisdictions covering the specific processes related to blood glucose level measurement as well as more general methods of rapid tests of body fluids using mobile devices and cloud-based services.
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