CombiMatrix Expands Sales Team to Accelerate Entry Into New Markets

CombiMatrix Expands Sales Team to Accelerate Entry Into New Markets
June 25, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor

Hiring is booming over at Irvine, Calif.-based CombiMatrix, after the clinical diagnostic laboratory said Thursday it had added seven sales reps to its teams this year, with plans to add four more next quarter.

The company had already told BioSpace in an interview that it was looking to nearly double its roster in 2015. Today’s news fleshed out the specifics of where it is looking to add staff.

“This year we’re doing an enhanced expansion of our sales organization, taking it from 12 to 20 individuals by year end, which is exciting,” Mark McDonough, president and chief executive officer of CombiMatrix, told BioSpace . “We brought in six people in the last few weeks and are looking to add two to three more by the end of the year. In addition, we’re adding to our billing and reimbursement team, our genetic counseling team and to key positions in the laboratory.”

McDonough sees a lot of potential candidates come through the door looking to join his team. His company specializes in testing for prenatal diagnosis, miscarriage analysis, and pediatric developmental disorders. As a full-scale cytogenetic and cytogenomic laboratory, CombiMatrix offers chromosomal microarray analysis, standard and customized FISH, and high resolution karyotyping to help clinicians better care for their patients.

"Our sales force expansion fits our overall focus on increasing test volume and growing revenues, and provides us with greater opportunities to capitalize on the anticipated growth in the markets we serve. We expect to end 2015 with a sales organization that is nearly doubled in size compared to the beginning of the year," he said Thursday.

That means McDonough needs the absolute best team he can put together—and this year, that means nearly doubling his staff.

"Given the momentum in our test volume and our success in diagnostic test cash collections, we believe this is an opportune time to increase our sales team and accelerate our entry into new, promising territories," said McDonough in a statement Thursday.

"Our decision to move up the timing of new sales force hires was based on both the growing demand we've seen in the territories we've invested in and the sustained growth in our more established territories,” he said. “We are supporting our field representatives with a newly hired inside sales organization to assist in optimizing utilization of our tests in current hospital accounts and to reach more physician call point targets.”


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