Kinotek names IDEXX, Covetrus veteran as new CEO

Kinotek, a digital health startup in Portland, has named Patricia Panaia, a former executive at IDEXX Laboratories and Covetrus, as its new CEO.

Justin Hafner, who co-founded the company in 2018 and has served as its CEO the past four years, on Saturday announced the leadership change on LinkedIn.

“I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Kinotek. I have made the decision to step into a new role with the company after assessing the needs of the business,” Hafner wrote. “Patricia Panaia will be taking over as CEO. Her experience and leadership will be invaluable as we navigate this next phase of growth.”

Kinotek, which spun out of Hafner’s research in kinesiology while a student at the University of Maine, has developed a digital health platform that uses motion capture technology and data visualizations to assist medical and fitness professionals. It raised a $2.1 million seed round last year.

In a follow-up conversation with Maine Startups Insider, Hafner said the decision to hand over the reins to Panaia came “with very careful consideration.”

“By the end of Q1 2022 it became clear to me that the company required a new set of skills to execute on our aggressive goals. Having worked with Pat regularly since the summer of 2021, I was able to observe her ability to execute on our goals, no matter how aggressive, and lead the team towards success,” Hafner said. “Success is achieved by coupling a great strategy with phenomenal execution. By handing the CEO role to Pat it assures our company will have success through phenomenal execution and allows me to focus on strategy, which has always been my greatest contribution to the organization.”

Panaia is a veteran of two of Maine’s largest publicly traded companies and startup success stories —IDEXX and Covetrus (originally known as Vets First Choice).

Panaia spent 20 years at IDEXX (between 1991 and 2011) helping to build and market technologically advanced diagnostics and highly integrated solutions to individual practitioners and aggregated groups in the veterinary space. She led teams across the United States in sales, marketing, and operations, then led reference lab teams across 13 countries in Europe.

Panaia joined Vets First Choice/Covetrus in 2011, not long after it was founded, and spent nearly 10 years there developing and leading the commercialization of its veterinary digital prescription management platform. During that time, the company’s revenue grew from $4 million to roughly $150 million by the time Covetrus went public in 2019 as a result of Vets First Choice’s merger with Henry Schein Animal Health. She departed Covetrus in December 2020 as its VP of Global Platform Expansion. She has also served on the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s Board of Directors since June 2020.

Panaia first became an investor in Kinotek before beginning to work with the team in July 2021.

“The parallels of working in human health aligned amazingly with her experience in animal health,” Hafner said. “By March, we all decided that she was a perfect fit to help take Kinotek to the next level as CEO. Every day Pat brings her digital product development, commercialization and startup mindset to help Kinotek grow, and complement the skills of the existing team.”

Kinotek currently has 15 employees and recently booked its first official platform-subscription revenue. It also recently achieved HIPAA compliance. Its currently at work on its next-generation platform that is “device agnostic,” meaning it can produce 3D visualizations from any computer camera or smart device.

“The company had its first sales in May and has built a pipeline of interest across the country not only with outpatient PTs and chiropractors, but with university athletics and academic programs, and fitness centers,” Panaia said. “We have our sights set on the successful launch of our platform and our next funding round.”