SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH - November 1st, 2022 - BioUtah today announced its 2022 BioUtah Life Sciences award winners. Five awards will be presented during the 2022 Mayer Brown BioHive Summit held on Nov. 10 at the Salt Palace, in Salt Lake City, Utah. BioUtah’s annual awards recognize leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs who have made significant contributions to the state’s life sciences industry.
To register for the summit and learn more about the award winners visit biohivesummit.com.
“We’re excited to unveil this year’s award winners,” said Kelvyn Cullimore, President and CEO of BioUtah. “Each individual receiving an award represents the finest of achievements in our life sciences industry, blazing new trails in science and fostering a robust ecosystem to advance life-changing treatments and technologies.”
“These awards give us a chance to celebrate the exceptional culture of innovation and collaboration we have here in the BioHive community,” added Brad Brown, Executive Chairman of ATL Technology and Chair of the BioUtah Board of Directors. “We proudly honor the winners.”
The awards and award winners are as follows:
Dr. Dan Fischer, Founder and CEO-Emeritus of Ultradent Products, for his contributions to Utah’s life sciences industry and improving oral health globally as an award-winning innovator, dentist, entrepreneur and humanitarian.
Dr. Fischer started Ultradent Products, a dental development, manufacturing, and sales distribution company, in 1979. It began at his kitchen table with the invention of Ultradent’s first product—Astringedent™ hemostatic. Forty-four years later, the company now boasts 500+ products, including the #1 professional teeth whitening brand in the world—Opalescence™. Utah-based Ultradent employs approximately 2000+ people. Approximately 1600 work in the South Jordan, Utah facility. The remaining are spread across the globe. The company continues to introduce groundbreaking technology, such as the world’s most recognized broad-spectrum LED curing light, VALO™, and the industry’s first dual-wavelength diode laser, Gemini™.
Dr. Fischer continues to play an active role in R&D at Ultradent and works tirelessly to improve the world through humanitarian work. This includes providing shelter and dental care to the people of Ukraine, donating thousands of products to humanitarian missions, and funding Ultradent’s long-standing charity—The Diversity Foundation—which focuses on providing education to young people who leave the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and need a helping hand.
Ken Eliasen, Senior Vice President of Operations for Delivery Systems and the Transcatheter Heart Valve (THV) division of Edwards Lifesciences, in Draper, Utah, for his outstanding leadership in the design, development and supply chain management of medical technologies, including advancing Edwards Lifesciences’ work focused each day on delivering innovative technologies to improve healthcare and help save lives around the world.
Eliasen began his career more than 34 years ago at CR Bard, working in R&D at their vascular access division. He joined Edwards Lifesciences in 2012 as the Director of R&D for their Cardiac Surgery Systems Division. In 2015, he moved into Supply Chain as the Vice President of the company’s Utah operations, where he successfully navigated the company through supply challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, while at the same time supporting the company’s expanding operations in the U.S. and internationally.
He holds more than 40 patents related to medical technologies and helped found five start-up medical device companies.
David J. Bearss, PhD, Co-Founder, and CEO of Salt Lake City-based Halia Therapeutics, for his limitless and inspiring entrepreneurial spirit, mentorship and achievements that are transforming therapeutics, spawning discovery, seeding startups and strengthening Utah’s life sciences community.
Dr. Bearss is a passionate and experienced entrepreneur with a successful track record of drug development that spans the last 25 years in both academic and pharmaceutical industry settings. He has discovered 16 compounds that have moved forward in clinical development and started many biotechnology companies, including Tolero Pharmaceuticals in Lehi, Utah. Under Dr. Bearss leadership, Tolero was acquired by Sumitomo Dianippon for nearly $1 billion, a state life sciences record. Prior to founding Tolero, Dr. Bearss helped establish the research arm of Huntsman Cancer Institute.
He is deeply involved in academic and industry endeavors. In addition to his leadership at Halia Therapeutics to develop new medicines targeting chronic inflammation, Dr. Bearss serves on the board of Xenter, Biolexis Therapeutics, Canary Speech and Galvan Health. He also helped start the U2TAH Therapeutics Accelerator at the University of Utah which works to help investigators at the University move their programs toward clinical investigations and licensing opportunities.
Nomi Health, headquartered in Orem, for the company’s response to COVID-19, working creatively with governments, businesses and organizations to make testing for the virus widely available, including offering online assessments and real time results reporting.
Mark Newman, CEO and Founder, will accept the award on behalf of the company. In addition to helping meet the challenges of COVID-19, Nomi Health is harnessing technology to build a new healthcare payment ecosystem that reduces the cost of medical payments to employers and speeds up payments to providers. The company has served the largest employers in the world, managed medical insurers and built enterprise-grade solutions at firms like Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Capital One.
F. Ann Millner, EdD, Utah State Senator for District 18 and Senate Majority Whip for her leadership in establishing the Utah State Legislature’s Life Sciences Innovation Caucus, dedication to preparing the next-gen workforce and supporting policies to promote medical innovation and improve patient care through legislation, including the 2020 Deep Technology Initiative, the 2022 Manufacturing Modernization Act and numerous other bills aimed at aligning educational goals with the needs of industry.
Millner’s academic and professional background is in the field of healthcare management. She was Education Coordinator of the Medical Technology Program at Vanderbilt University and Instructional Development in Medical Technology at the Thomas Jefferson University, among other university positions. She is currently a Regents Professor of Health Administration at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah where she also served as President of the University from 2002-2010.
In 2014, Millner ran and won a State Senate seat in Utah’s 18th district. She is a board member for Intermountain Health, Merit Medical Systems, the Ogden/Weber Chamber of Commerce, and the Weber Economic Development Corporation. She is the recipient of numerous awards in education, government and business.
