Board of Directors

David P. King

David P. King is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Laboratory Corporation of America® Holdings (LabCorp).  LabCorp, one of the world’s largest clinical laboratories, had revenues of over $4.8 billion (2009) and has more than 28,000 employees nationwide.

Prior to becoming Chief Executive Officer on January 1, 2007, Mr. King served as LabCorp’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer since 2005.   Previously, he served as head of the Company’s US LABS / Esoterix Division, one of the nation’s leading specialty testing and cancer diagnostic laboratories, as well as Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning and Corporate Development. He is a member of the Company’s Management Committee.
 
Mr. King initially joined LabCorp as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer in 2001 after working for many years with the Company as an outside counsel. Prior to joining the Company, he was a partner with Hogan & Hartson L.L.P. in Baltimore, Maryland from 1992 to 2001.
 
Mr. King is also on the board of The Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) which seeks to advance the understanding and adoption of personalized medicine concepts and products for the benefit of patients.
 
Mr. King, 53, holds an AB degree, cum laude, from Princeton University and a JD degree, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Garheng Kong, M.D., PhD.

Dr. Garheng Kong is a General Partner with Intersouth Partners, where he primarily works with the firm’s life sciences portfolio. 

He has served as director and chairman on the boards of numerous private companies over the last decade with full-cycle investing experience—successfully sourcing, syndicating, managing, and exiting investments.  Dr. Kong has also operated as interim CEO for two Intersouth portfolio companies. 

Prior to joining Intersouth, Dr. Kong was a clinical scientist at Glaxo Wellcome, focusing on clinical trials and marketing, and an associate at McKinsey & Company. He has also been involved in commercializing early-stage technology with the Duke University Office of Science and Technology.

Dr. Kong is an active member of the life science and entrepreneurial community, Garheng has served on the boards of directors of the SEBIO organization, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), the Hamner Institutes for Life Sciences, the NC Advanced Medical Technology Center, the University of Florida Biotechnology Council, and the Southeast Universities Research Association, among others. He is on faculty at the Duke Fuqua School of Business as a Senior Scholar.

Dr.Kong received his M.D., Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, and M.B.A. from Duke University. He also holds B.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biological Sciences from Stanford University.

Myla Lai-Goldman, M.D.

Myla Lai-Goldman is CancerGuide’s Chief Executive Officer, Chief Scientific Officer, and Board member. 

Dr. Lai-Goldman’s primary focus is defining and executing the overall strategy for the company.   Priority areas include finding and defining new products that fulfill the company’s core mission to improve the management of cancer patients.  

Dr. Lai-Goldman spent more than 18 years at Laboratory Corporation of America, Holdings (LabCorp), the last 10 years as Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Officer.  Dr. Lai-Goldman served on LabCorp’s Executive and Management Committees, with strategic and operations responsibilities for 3 major genomic laboratories comprising more than 700 people.  

During her tenure at the Company, she led all clinical, scientific and medical activities, including the introduction of more than 400 clinical assays.  Her experience includes the development of partnerships, licensing, and acquisitions.

After leaving LabCorp, Dr. Lai-Goldman became a managing partner of Personalized Science, LLC, a consulting company founded to assist customers achieve successful adoption of innovative diagnostics.  Dr. Lai-Goldman is Board-certified in anatomic and clinical pathology.

Clay B. Thorp

Mr. Clay B. Thorp is an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. Since 1995, Mr. Thorp has co-founded four companies in the life science arena and co-founded Hatteras in 2001 with the launch of seed-stage Hatteras Venture Partners I, L.P. (HVP I). The fund has a top decile IRR and has returned approximately 150% of its capital to limited partners. Since HVP I, Mr.Thorp has been instrumental in building the Hatteras firm and has led investments in a number of life science companies.

As a part of his work with Hatteras, Mr. Thorp was a co-founder and served as CEO and Chairman of Synthematix, Inc., a chemistry informatics company that was acquired in April 2005 by Symyx Technologies (SMMX) for $13 million in cash. He is a co-founder and former Chairman of PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Prior to Hatteras, Mr. Thorp was the co-founder and head of corporate development for Novalon Pharmaceutical Corporation, where he led financing efforts and was head of business development from inception until Novalon's sale to Karo Bio for $106.7 million in May of 2000.

Prior to Novalon, Mr. Thorp was the co-founder and president of Xanthon, Inc., a bioinformatics company with electro-chemical detection technology for direct analysis of DNA, RNA and proteins.

Mr. Thorp currently serves as Chairman of Pathfinder Therapeutics, on the board of PhaseBio, ArtusLabs, and CancerGuide, and as a board observer for Respirics. He holds a Masters of Public Policy from Harvard University and a B.A. in mathematics and history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.