Co-Diagnostics appoints Abbott new president, fills other leadership positions

Co-Diagnostics Inc., a Salt Lake City-based molecular diagnostics company, has announced that its board of directors has appointed Richard Abbott as president, David Nielsen as chief operations officer (COO), Christopher Thurston as chief technology officer and Seth Egan as chief commercialization officer.

Prior to his new role at the company, Abbott was president of Advanced Conceptions Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Co-Diagnostics since December 2021, and has been instrumental in establishing the company’s teams and technology for its Co-Dx PCR platform. His experience includes over 25 years in senior leadership positions of in-vitro diagnostics companies, including as vice president of engineering at BioFire Diagnostics.

Abbott holds an MS degree from Brigham Young University and an MBA from the Wharton Business School. The company said Abbott will now play a key role in the development and commercialization of the Co-Dx PCR platform and associated tests.

Nielsen previously held the role of COO for Idaho Molecular, also acquired by Co-Dx in 2021, and has worked in concert with Advanced Conceptions and Co-Dx to help guide the development of the company’s new platform since that time. Nielsen has over 25 years of R&D technical and leadership experience, primarily at BioFire and BioFire Defense. He holds both an MS and MBA from the University of Utah.

Thurston’s career has included decades of experience serving as senior developer and architect of software platforms for companies including Ernst and Young, BioFire Defense and BioMerieux. He co-invented the Co-Dx PCR platform at Idaho Molecular and will continue work in the advancement of Co-Dx’s platform and tests.

Egan has been with Co-Dx since its inception, leading the company’s sales, marketing and product commercialization efforts from the beginning, including managing the sales team as it sold approximately 35 million Logix Smart tests to centralized laboratories in more than 50 countries since the beginning of the pandemic. He holds a BS in business communications from Utah Valley University.

Co-Diagnostics develops, manufactures and markets state-of-the-art diagnostics technologies. The company’s technologies are utilized for tests that are designed using the detection and/or analysis of nucleic acid molecules (DNA or RNA).