Karius: Norman Sharpless, Elizabeth O'Farrell

Karius, a Redwood City, California-based company developing liquid biopsy tests for infectious disease diagnosis, has appointed Norman (Ned) Sharpless and Elizabeth (Liz) O'Farrell to its board of directors.

Sharpless served as director of the National Cancer Institute from 2017 to 2022. In 2019, he also served as acting commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration for seven months. He was also the director of the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center from 2014 to 2017. Sharpless began his clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and cofounded G1 Therapeutics and Jupiter BioVentures. He is a graduate of the UNC School of Medicine where he is now professor of cancer policy and innovation.

O'Farrell worked at Eli Lilly for 24 years, holding several executive management positions including general auditor, CFO of Lilly USA, and SVP of policy and finance. Her role before retiring in 2017 was as chief procurement officer and head of global shared services. She holds an MBA in management information systems and a BA in accounting from Indiana University, Bloomington.