Rangarajan Sampath, PhD, is Senior Vice President and Head of the Center for Innovation in Diagnostics (CID) at Siemens Healthineers. There, he leads innovation and new product development in oncology, neurology, and infectious diseases. CID’s focus is to drive disruptive next-generation innovation, development, and commercialization of in-vitro diagnostics, automation, and digital health solutions.
Before this, Dr. Sampath was Chief Scientific Officer at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), a Geneva-based non-profit organization focused on bringing cutting-edge diagnostics to low- and middle-income countries. Dr. Sampath headed FIND’s research and development organization, leading its innovation, product development, and disease programs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he led a team of researchers to set up an evaluation framework to independently assess commercially available assays to aid procurement and country prioritization decisions. He also represented FIND as a working group member in the Access to COVID Tools -Accelerator Diagnostics (ACT-A Dx) Partnership, co-convened by FIND and the Global Fund.
From 1997 – 2017, Dr. Sampath served as a Volwiler Senior Research Fellow and Senior Director of Research and Development (R&D) for the Ibis Division of Abbott. He led Ibis’ R&D efforts in infectious disease diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance diagnostics, and surveillance. He was responsible for application development, validation, data analysis, and reporting for the Ibis PCR/ESI-MS-based IRIDICA platform. Dr. Sampath co-founded Ibis Biosciences, Inc. and is a co-inventor of the IRIDICA (CE-IVD) infectious disease diagnostics platform.
Dr. Sampath is a recognized leader in the field, with over 100 publications and over 40 issued patents in infectious disease diagnostics. He was invited to the White House National Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship. He was an active member of the AdvamedDx Industry Forum for the global commitment to developing diagnostic tests to fight antimicrobial resistance (AMR). He has been an invited speaker at many public forums, such as the Institute of Medicine, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA). He was a vital member of an FDA/PDA task force involved in defining the future of viral screening for cell substrates. Dr. Sampath most recently served for a 3-year term as a member of the Diagnostics Committee for IDSA. His research interests include sepsis, antimicrobial strategy development, pathogen discovery, fevers of unknown origin, tropical diseases, epidemiological surveillance, and biothreat detection.
