TestCard appoints Elmer Monster as chief executive officer

TestCard has appointed former Roche executive Elmer Monster as its chief executive officer to manage its next phase of growth as it adopts a rapid expansion programme, both in terms of launching new products and expanding into global markets.

Monster has over 20 years of experience across the healthcare industry. He held various senior leadership roles in commercial, finance and strategy at Roche across both the pharmaceuticals and diagnostics divisions.

Elmer was recently CFO of Swiss medtech company Coretag, which focused on the development of cancer imaging and targeted radiotherapy. Elmer has been a commercial advisor to TestCard for several years and was appointed to TestCard’s Board earlier this year.

He takes over as CEO from Chris Craig-Wood who remains a substantial shareholder going forward.

Chris Craig-Wood said: “I’m very pleased to be handing the leadership baton to Elmer as we enter such an exciting phase in the company’s growth. We always planned to transition to a new leader for the next chapter with the requisite deep domain knowledge to build on the solid foundations that are now in place, particularly following the recent signing of our landmark contract with Roche.”

Elmer Monster added: “It’s a great honour to become chief executive of such an innovative company. TestCard is bringing testing into the digital age, empowering people to test at the point of care, both at home and in clinical settings and enabling access to improved patient outcomes.”

TestCard is a British digital diagnostics company aiming to increase the accessibility and diagnostic capability of non-invasive testing.

With award-winning innovative technology that can turn a smartphone into a clinical grade scanner, TestCard launched its first commercial product, a urinary tract infection (UTI) self-test at the end of 2020 which is sold through its UK pharmacy partners.

TestCard went on to launch ClearScreen - a digital reading, recording, and reporting solution for medical tests developed in collaboration with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and SureScreen Diagnostics in July 2021. 

The solution comprises a mobile app which provides rapid reading and recording of test results at the point of care whilst reducing admin time for hospital staff and improving traceability. 

The scanned test result can be shared into a patient’s electronic record in seconds. It is hoped that the ClearScreen app, which has been validated by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, could now be rolled out across other NHS Trusts in England.

TestCard raised more than $10 million in its latest round of fundraising earlier this year and recently signed a collaboration contract with Roche that will see its ClearScreen app included on Roche's newest point-of-care solution - the cobas pulse system. 

Howard Meitiner, chairman of TestCard, said: “We are delighted to appoint Elmer as our CEO for the next phase of our evolution - one of rapid growth. Elmer has had a hugely successful career growing healthcare businesses across multiple continents. This vast domain experience will be enormously valuable to help TestCard to fully realise its potential over the coming years.

“The Board would like to thank Chris for his very significant contribution in building out TestCard over the last two years as this has been a crucial period in strengthening our foundation to position the company for our next phase of growth. We look forward to continuing to leverage his extensive experience going forward as TestCard continues to evolve.”