TriCore’s First Chief Scientific Officer

Albuquerque-based TriCore Reference Laboratories has established a new executive role to focus on research, the company announced.

David Grenache, Ph.D,  who currently is a clinical professor of pathology at the University of Utah School of Medicine and medical director in the chemistry division at ARUP Laboratories in Salt Lake City, will serve as TriCore’s first chief scientific officer.

TriCore said Grenache will begin his job in September.

In his new role, Grenache will be responsible for oversight of the core lab’s strategic direction and planning, as well as contributing to the leadership of the TriCore Research Institute.  A core lab is a diagnostic facility where more complex testing is conducted, as opposed to the rapid response testing done at a TriCore’s hospital sites.  TriCore’s core lab performs 10.5 million clinical tests each year.

In addition to its core lab operations, TriCore, a not-for-profit, has 30 patient care centers throughout New Mexico.

TriCore’s executive team hailed the new appointment.

“I have been fortunate to know Dr. Grenache for many years through the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, where he has served in multiple capacities,” said Dr. Michael Crossey, TriCore’s chief medical officer. “He is widely known as a leading expert in maternal/fetal clinical chemistry issues and one of the best clinical chemists and medical educators I know.”

Khosrow Shotorbani, TriCore’s president and CEO, said New Mexico is gaining a new healthcare executive with “true international expertise,” and the company should profit as a result.

Grenache’s reearch interests are focused on reproductive biochemistry and emerging biomakers of disease.

Co-sponsored by Presbyterian Healthcare Services and University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, TriCore currently has 1,300 employees in the state.