About Us
Who we are
We’re an enthusiastic team of technical experts, creative problem solvers, and ambitious leaders working together to build impactful health products. We connect key industry players with direct-to-patient solutions that make a tangible improvement on health outcomes.
Our Vision
A healthier world
We imagine a future where our customers can more efficiently support earlier diagnosis of conditions and discover cures, where patients have better access to physicians and easy and affordable diagnostic testing services, and where the world is healthier as a result of what we do.
Direct-to-patient health services
ixlayer is the leading cloud-based platform powering an end-to-end direct to patient healthcare experience. Our technology supports operational efficiency, improves patient access, and drives better health outcomes. We seamlessly integrate services across the healthcare ecosystem simplifying and accelerating the connection to care. Our clients increase their patient volume, improve their speed to market, and drive patient engagement, while improving brand loyalty.
Here’s who’s behind ixlayer
Our mission began in 2017 to enable remote lab testing. Today, we operate the world’s most sought-after direct-to-patient platform — end-to-end services marked by an exceptional consumer experience.
Meet our advisors
Our advisory board includes industry pioneers and healthcare changemakers that share our mission of making diagnostic testing accessible to all.
Moncef Slaoui
Moncef Slaoui served as Chief Advisor for the US government’s COVID-19 vaccine development effort, Operation Warp Speed (OPWASP).
Slaoui previously spent nearly 30 years at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), most recently as Chairman of Global Vaccines, and sat on GSK’s board from 2006 until his retirement.
He also was on Moderna’s Board of Directors between 2017 and 2020 the start of Operation Warp Speed in 2020.
Paul Martino
Paul Martino is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of VillageMD. VillageMD is committed to offering high-quality, accessible primary care options for communities across the country through Village Medical.
Prior to VillageMD, Martino was the Senior Vice President of Clinical Strategy and Innovation at Anthem/WellPoint and has held senior roles at Kaiser Permanente and Aetna.
David Shulkin
The Honorable David J Shulkin, MD served as the ninth Secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
Prior to VA, Secretary Shulkin served as chief executive of Beth Israel in New York City and Morristown Medical Center in Northern New Jersey, Chief Medical Officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University Hospital, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital, and Chairman of Medicine and Vice Dean at Drexel University School of Medicine.
Marcus Osborne
Marcus Osborne spent nearly 15 years and numerous leadership positions at Walmart Health, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, and is the former Chief Financial Officer for the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative.
Osborne sits as a member of the board at Community Outreach & Patient Empowerment (COPE), the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care, Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Northwest Arkansas, and the Bentonville Public Schools Foundation.
Kevin Ban
Dr. Ban is Executive Vice President and Global Chief Medical Officer for Walgreens Boots Alliance, where he played a critical role in leading the company’s national pandemic response. In addition to providing real-time clinical guidance and implementing guidelines to ensure patient and team safety during the public health crisis, he launched and expanded COVID-19 testing and vaccination services across thousands of stores. In addition, Dr. Ban led the team that launched the Walgreens COVID-19 Index, a new tool harnessing Walgreens testing data to track new and emerging variants across the country in near real-time.
Meet ixlayer’s leaders
Pouria Sanae
Pouria Sanae is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of ixlayer. His previous leadership roles include head of product partnership at Helix, where he led launch efforts for 22 genomics consumer products, and director of product management at Yahoo and Flickr. He was also founder and CEO of two startups – data mining company CMS (Complex Made Simple) and eCommerce platform Cityblis. Pouria holds a Master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, and spent the first seven years of his career within the aerospace sector working for the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Airbus space division, Syderal space, Oerlikon Aerospace, and TERMA group working in multiple countries and regions in Europe.
Poorya Sabounchi, PhD
Poorya Sabounchi, PhD is a co-founder and COO of ixlayer. Previously Poorya was part of the Avantome founding team which was acquired by Illumina in 2008 where he was the key scientist inventing some of the key technologies for portable genomic sequencing technologies. Before ixlayer, Poorya spent two years coaching Illumina Accelerator startups with technology, operations, and business strategy. Poorya has several patents and published peer-reviewed articles about DNA sequencing and pathogen detection.
Vahid Kowsari
Vahid Kowsari is a co-founder and serves as the CTO of ixlayer. Vahid has over 10 years of experience in regulated HIPAA compliant software infrastructure development for institutes such as Dignity Health. Vahid was the VP of Engineering at Oncoverse, a HIPAA compliant Cancer-Collaboration-platform used by Dignity Health hospitals. He also served as Director of Engineering at Palette Software, a system for large-scale Tableau Business Intelligence deployments. Customers included Netflix, Apple and Climate Corp. He was also the Director of Engineering at Cognitive Networks (now Vizio Inscape Data Services), working on large-scale content recognition systems for 150 live video channels on 5 million Vizio and LG TVs.