The Clearity Foundation Hires Hillary Theakston as Executive Director

LA JOLLA, Calif., Feb. 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Clearity Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing personalized treatment information to women with ovarian cancer, today announced that Hillary Theakston has been appointed Executive Director, a new position for the organization. The Executive Director role was created to lead the foundation as it increases its capacity to support more ovarian cancer patients nationwide.  Key priorities will include fundraising to support operational growth, patient awareness and clinician education efforts. Ms. Theakston brings over 15 years of experience leading communications programs for healthcare companies.

"For three years, The Clearity Foundation has been helping women understand their unique tumor types and evaluate their treatment options. We have laid a solid foundation and now it's time to reach the thousands of ovarian cancer patients who confront the same life-or-death treatment decisions every year with little information," said Clearity Founder Dr. Laura Shawver. "Our grass roots efforts are paying off and I am confident that with Hillary's leadership we can expand our reach and change the way treatment decisions are made for women with recurrent ovarian cancer."

Ovarian cancer tumors are very different from patient to patient, which means they are likely to respond differently to FDA approved and investigational drugs.  By identifying the alterations in each tumor's information pathways, molecular profiling enables the individualization of a patient's treatment by matching those tumor alterations with one or more drugs. The Clearity Foundation has developed a process for generating this personalized diagnostic information using commercially-available molecular profiling technologies and then analyzing the results using its Diane Barton Database. Armed with this analysis, patients are able to work with their medical teams to make better-informed treatment decisions.

"Since Laura founded the organization three years ago, the team has made stunning progress in establishing Clearity's process for using genomic information to inform patients' treatments," said Hillary Theakston, executive director of The Clearity Foundation. "In that short time, Clearity has already made a positive difference in many patients' lives by using a personalized approach to treatment instead of the trial and error approach that is most often used today. I am honored to join The Clearity Foundation at this critical stage in its development."

Ms. Theakston has led investor relations, marketing and public relations initiatives as both a consultant and employee. In addition to her responsibilities at Clearity, she provides communications consulting to healthcare companies including Trius Therapeutics, Medipacs and Sorrento Therapeutics. Previously as ResMed's director of communications, Ms. Theakston managed internal teams and external agencies to develop an optimal mix of public relations and marketing programs to support key business objectives. Prior to joining ResMed, Ms. Theakston led investor relations and public relations for Diversa Corporation, a genomic discovery company.

About The Clearity Foundation

The Clearity Foundation is the only 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping ovarian cancer patients make more informed treatment decisions with personalized diagnostic information. Every year, more than 14,000 women die of ovarian cancer and approximately 21,000 are newly-diagnosed. When a patient's ovarian cancer returns after standard chemotherapy, a chance for a cure is less than 15%, or less than 3% if she did not respond to initial treatment. Ovarian cancer survivor and scientist Laura Shawver, Ph.D., established The Clearity Foundation to improve treatment options for ovarian cancer patients and change the one-size-fits-all approach. Visit www.clearityfoundation.org to learn how you can help ovarian cancer patients improve their quality of life and live longer.

SOURCE The Clearity Foundation