---
title: "Katherine Stueland of GeneDx: Inside the Strategy to Shift Healthcare from Hypothesis-Based Medicine to Whole Genome Sequencing"
url: "https://authoritymag.co/articles/katherine-stueland-of-genedx-inside-the-strategy-to-shift-healthcare-from-hypothesis-based-medic"
publisher: "Authority Magazine"
author: "Dave Philistin, CEO of Candor"
authorUrl: "https://authoritymag.co/authors/dave-philistin-ceo-of-candor"
interviewee: "Katherine Stueland"
company: "GeneDx"
category: "Business"
datePublished: "2021-11-14T14:53:02.857Z"
dateModified: "2026-11-12T17:08:09.335Z"
tags: "Business"
---

# Katherine Stueland of GeneDx: Inside the Strategy to Shift Healthcare from Hypothesis-Based Medicine to Whole Genome Sequencing

*GeneDx CEO Katherine Stueland shares how her company is revolutionizing healthcare by making whole exome and genome sequencing broadly available for proactive, personalized medicine.*

> Genetic testing can take some of the guesswork out of medicine. Doctors no longer need to rely solely on the symptoms patients are presenting, and can instead get full pictures of patients’ health to make care decisions informed by data.

---

As*a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Katherine Stueland of GeneDx.*

*Bringing a patient-centric approach to business strategies, Katherine Stueland has focused her career on delivering breakthrough technologies that improve healthcare, currently as President and CEO of GeneDx, a leading medical genetic testing company. Katherine helped bring the first cancer immunotherapy to market, ushering in a new era in cancer care, and was among the early leaders at medical genetics company Invitae, which built access to medical genetic testing after the Supreme Court invalidated gene patents in 2013. Katherine is passionate about closing health disparity gaps and ensuring genetic information is available to all.*

---

**Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?**

Health is central to each of our lives, but healthcare can be complicated, especially for patients. I wanted to help make it easier.

I’ve always looked ahead at how science is emerging to break current standards of care, so I’ve been a part of ushering in disruptive technologies that fundamentally shift the course of healthcare. Due to both my own experiences and those of the patients I’ve worked with over the years, I’ve been frustrated to see the industry continue to put the vast majority of its resources toward reactive, one-size-fits-all, expensive treatments rather than tailored and preventive approaches that can improve lives and lower costs.

That brought me to what I call a “career karma” moment when I joined a then-fledgling genetics company just before a landmark Supreme Court decision opened up access to genetic medicine broadly. Its model focused on creating access in part by lowering the cost of testing, not raising prices as every other company has done in the industry. I was hooked — this was an opportunity to dramatically reshape how we manage health at all stages of life by using the information within each of us. In the years that followed, I was part of the team that took the company public and ultimately delivered medical genetic information to more than two million people making life-changing decisions about cancer care, having a baby and treating rare diseases.

At GeneDx, we’re really focused on taking the next big leap in truly making the promise of the Human Genome Project a reality. We’re establishing genetic information as a guidance system throughout life by making clinical whole exome and genome sequencing broadly available to deliver personalized medicine to everyone, beginning at birth. This means using genomic information in a much more efficient and proactive manner. That vision will revolutionize healthcare by enabling faster, more accurate diagnoses for patients, connecting them to the most precise therapeutic approach based on their DNA and accelerating drug development globally.

**Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?**

Healthcare right now is heavily grounded in what we call “hypothesis-based medicine.” Clinicians begin with a hypothesis on what condition could explain a person’s symptoms and then pursue testing and treatment to confirm it. But we all know that process is imperfect. Sometimes this process is complicated; sometimes symptoms do not present equally in patients across the board, there’s a rare condition at play or there are no symptoms at all, eliminating the ability to intervene before a serious threat develops.

Genetic testing can take some of the guesswork out of medicine. Doctors no longer need to rely solely on the symptoms patients are presenting, and can instead get full pictures of patients’ health to make care decisions informed by data. That’s what makes me so energized about what we’re doing here at GeneDx. It really is about ushering in the next great era of medicine, representing the most fundamental shift in how we manage health across generations.

**We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?**

Two CEOs at my last company, Invitae, have both been incredible mentors to me. Randy Scott is a genomics pioneer and was at the helm of Invitae when we were going public. He taught me the importance of looking at any setback as an opportunity to do better. Sean George, Invitae’s current CEO, taught me about operational excellence and the value of data-driven decision-making. But I would say one the biggest influences on me has been Heike Malakoff, who is an incredible friend who also happens to be a cancer survivor. She was first diagnosed with cancer just after giving birth to her twin boys. I watched her navigate being a mom of three kids under three while undergoing chemotherapy amidst the backdrop of a complex healthcare system here in the US. She teaches me every day that I can be a part of the change that makes healthcare simpler for everyone and why it’s so important that we succeed. She constantly challenges people to make things easier. And that’s what we’re trying to do at GeneDx — reduce complexity.

**In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?**

I think disruption can sometimes unfortunately create confusion on the way to delivering clarity and a better experience. I think streaming services are an example. Before the advent of streaming, finding something to watch was relatively straightforward. There were channels, they had programming and we all had the same options at the same time, so it was fairly simple, but it was also not always a great experience. I like finding a show I love and diving into it to relax — I’ve been a big Ted Lasso fan — and you really couldn’t do that in the same way before streaming. With streaming we have all these options at our fingertips, but it’s also become a really complicated experience. I think you’re now seeing services like Just Watch creating essentially a search engine layer on top of the streaming services to help with that.

My industry is a bit like that. Right now even within medical genetic testing we’re fractioned into many, many different smaller genetic tests, and it can be confusing even for doctors to figure out who needs what test and when. That’s part of what we’re trying to solve for at GeneDx — let’s get to where we just test the whole genome of a person rather than wade through complicated choices about which test will tell you about which genes.

**Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.**

**If you’re gonna go, go boldly.**This was the gift from a poet laureate in California. My natural inclination is to play it safe and take an incremental step forward, but with each career move I’ve made, I’ve been routinely greeted with people asking me “are you sure you can do this job?” When I left my job as a vice president of communications and investor relations, I was convinced my next step had to be a *senior* vice president. And I couldn’t find the right role or company. Then I got to Invitae, where it just felt right. Their mission was so aligned with the mark I wanted to make on the industry for the sake of better patient care, but it was a contrarian business model and culture. After my interview, they liked me, and I liked them, and they said, “we can only afford you one day a week, and we don’t believe in titles.” My partner at the time told me not to take it. But I realized sometimes you have to take a giant step back to catapult forward. I knew it was the right thing for me. So I went for bold, and I wouldn’t be CEO of GeneDx today if I had taken the traditional path.

**Assume good intent.**This is a personal mantra and our team at GeneDx has embraced it. By assuming good intent, you can stay in a place of curiosity and learning. When I first started in this role, senior people on the team expressed concern about some of the changes I was suggesting. By assuming that they were coming from a place of good intent, I was able to approach the conversation with a learning mindset, and it enabled us to have generative discussions about why I was asking them to consider reorganizing their teams. Fortunately, they greeted me with an assumption of good intent as well and designed a new organizational structure to support the new growth strategy I was laying out. We came to it together — I didn’t have to impose it on them. They were the drivers of the change. If we had all approached it with different assumptions in mind, I believe the outcome would have been less ideal and more painful for us all.

**Believe.**We have to believe in each other, and we have to believe in ourselves. The deliberate optimism that I learned from Randy Scott, and that we all love in Ted Lasso, reverberates between team members. You know what they say about the best laid plans? As with any business, GeneDx has been on a bit of a roller coaster, and there are days when I need to remind our team to believe and in turn, they remind me. Several of us made our own “BELIEVE” signs å la Coach Ted Lasso and posted them in the hallway without any explanation during my very first days at the company. One person asked our receptionist what the meaning was. She replied, “I don’t know exactly. But I imagine it means Katherine wants us to believe in the plan, to believe in her, but most importantly to believe in ourselves.” The next day under one of the “BELIEVE” signs, there was a new one that said “WE BELIEVE.”

**We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?**

Personalization is the future of medicine. Whole genome sequencing provides personalized health insights that will play a pivotal role in informing the future of patient care for people of all demographics and diagnoses. Today we’re focused on just getting genetics included into healthcare for more people. But we’ve really just scratched the surface. Here at GeneDx, we’re publishing more than a hundred new gene-disease relationships a year. We’re deeply looking at how to create a flywheel effect that speeds the discovery engine in ways that make diagnosis and treatment better and really transforms how new drugs are developed. We’re still very much at the beginning of the genetics era — I think there is enormous opportunity ahead.

**Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?**

I’m a big fan of Mellody Hobson, whom I admire as a trailblazer in so many ways. I saw an [interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EUXBGo4-Hw) with her once, where she told a story of stepping out of her comfort zone because she saw a social issue she wanted to positively impact — financial literacy. She talks about a moment of panic where she deeply questioned whether she could deliver on a project she’d created. I know I’ve certainly had that moment of panic where you think “Oh my goodness, can I really do this?” — unfortunately I think that’s more common for women. Getting to the point where you can let go of the outcome and be OK with the risk of failing is essential to accomplishing anything big. You have to take leaps of faith in life, and you can only do that if you trust yourself and realize that even if you fail, the sun will come up the next morning.

**Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?**

**“You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.”**Straight out of “The Wizard of Oz.” I grew up with and spent the better part of my life enduring an unhealthy amount of self-doubt. I did a lot of work — *a lot* — in examining those beliefs that were holding me back at work and in life. Again, I think this is something women grapple with more than men. In dismantling those, I realized that I was already far more capable than I was giving myself credit for. I didn’t need to be perfect at every part of my job — that’s not even possible — so I just needed to jump into the deep end every once in a while, rather than waiting for the perfect moment.

**You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)**

I would like to see us change how businesses approach hiring and training to create opportunities for people who might not otherwise have them. Here at GeneDx. I’m looking to change how we recruit and hire to challenge the traditional requirements that actually create barriers for people and starve companies of a much broader pool of talent. There are many people who could be great teammates but who face unique barriers — for example a woman leaving a domestic violence situation without a stable home, or someone who was formerly incarcerated but has paid his or her debt to society and just needs a chance, or someone with some developmental differences who is very capable but struggles to get jobs. We’ll be looking at how we can partner with non-profits who are doing terrific work on this front, but if I could start a movement, it would be to encourage all leaders to embrace that kind radical inclusivity as we think about building our teams. The opportunity to create workplaces that inclusive, accessible and really harness the power of innovative work cultures can help make the world a better place.

**How can our readers follow you online?**

Check out GeneDx on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

**This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!**

---
Source: https://authoritymag.co/articles/katherine-stueland-of-genedx-inside-the-strategy-to-shift-healthcare-from-hypothesis-based-medic (Authority Magazine, Business). Interviewee answers are first-person statements of the guest. Index of all pages: https://authoritymag.co/llms.txt