Global Health Labs, Inc (GH Labs) today announced the appointment of Steven Kern, PhD, as its President and Interim Chief Executive Officer. To the role, Dr. Kern brings nearly 40 years of cross-sector experience in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modeling, clinical pharmacology, control systems engineering for drug delivery, and medical device development.
Dr. Kern joins GH Labs through his engagement as Special Projects Lead for Health & Life Sciences at Gates Ventures, with duties that include serving as GH Labs’ President and Interim CEO while the board advances its search for a permanent CEO as detailed in September.
“Steve is uniquely positioned to make an impact during this period of transition, partnering with the board and leadership team to ensure GH Labs’ pipeline of innovations continue at pace,” said Niranjan Bose, GH Labs board member and Managing Director of Health & Life Sciences at Gates Ventures.
Prior to GH Labs, Dr. Kern led the Quantitative Sciences Team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for nearly ten years, delivering quantitative analyses that shaped program strategies and therapeutic product development efforts in global health. Before that, Dr. Kern served as Global Head of Pharmacology Modeling at Novartis Pharma AG based in Basel, Switzerland, where his team provided model-based drug development support to therapeutics initiatives that spanned a range of disease conditions and all stages of product development.
Early in his career, Dr. Kern was Associate Professor of Pharmaceutics, Anesthesiology, and Bioengineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he also served as co-investigator for their NIH funded Pediatric Pharmacology Research Unit. He has authored over 70 original research papers and continues to serve as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Utah as well as the Asan Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea.
Dr. Kern earned his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Utah, MS in Bioengineering from Penn State University, and BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University.
About GH Labs
Global Health Labs, Inc (GH Labs) innovates to reduce health disparities, especially in low- and middle-income countries. As a nonprofit corporation fully funded by Gates Ventures (the private office of Bill Gates), we closely partner with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and leaders across sectors to develop technology solutions that address unmet needs in:
Recent innovations from GH Labs resulted in several commercially available rapid COVID-19 antigen tests, an AI-enabled smartphone app to detect cervical cancer, and a portable cold chain device that enables vaccine delivery to remote communities—among many other tools and technologies advanced for the people who need them most.
