Larry Mimms, Ph.D.

Previously Dr. Mimms founded VDx LLC in 2008 to develop and market rapid, point of care HIV diagnostic tests. From 1994 to 2007 Dr. Mimms held a number of Executive positions at Gen-Probe Incorporated including Vice President, Development, Blood, Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development and Executive Vice President, Research and Development from 2005-2007. Dr. Mimms initiated and headed up the Gen-Probe blood bank program from 1996 to 2002. In 1996, he and his colleagues won a National Institutes of Health (NIH) contract to develop blood screening assays to detect HIV and HCV nucleic acid. This work and later contracts led to FDA licensure and market introduction of Procleix HIV-1/HCV RNA, Ultrio HIV-1/HCV/HBV assay and the Procleix West Nile Virus assay. As a result of this work, Gen-Probe won the 2004 National Medal of Technology, the highest U.S. honor for technological innovation, for "development and commercialization of new blood testing technologies and systems for the direct detection of viral diseases."

Dr. Mimms served as a member of the Blue Ribbon R&D Panel for the American Red Cross from 2006-2007 and is member of the scientific advisory board of Lumiphore Inc. and teaches in the extension program at UCSD since 2009.

From 1983 to 1994, he held various positions in the Hepatitis/AIDS Business Unit at Abbott Laboratories. He was a NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University in Cellular and Developmental Biology prior to joining Abbott Laboratories. He earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Duke University and a B.S. in chemistry from Davidson College. He has 49 publications in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, six issued U.S. patents and four issued European patents.