Team — Equine Performance Labs

Our Team

Quietly Built.
Backed by Science.

While others chased speed, we chose evidence. Equine Performance Labs has spent its years building the science before making the claim — controlled studies, peer-reviewed publication, and a standard of rigor borrowed from human medicine. One principle has held throughout: Horse First. Sport Second.

Read Our Story

All About Our Story

A team built around one principle

Heather Rogers built Equine Performance Labs as a horse girl with a foundational knowledge of human biologics. She knew the equine market wasn’t offering what the science could deliver — so she founded a company that would. EPL was built on a single belief: horses deserve better. Better quality. Better science. Better solutions. What started as a conviction became a mission rooted in research, data, and a commitment to advancing equine care through science-backed innovation.

Meet Our Team
Foal at Coteau Grove Farms
Equine Performance Labs processing under ISO-aligned standards
equicenta CTM packaging at the farm
Horse at Coteau Grove

Our Story

The Journey, Year by Year

A quiet build, by design. Here’s how the work has unfolded.

2022 Founded
Stage One · Foundation

The journey begins

The work starts with a conviction — that horses deserved options the market wasn’t offering, and that the rigor applied in human biologics could be brought to equine care. By June, our CEO Heather Rogers begins forming the founding team, drawing together veterinary surgeons, biologics scientists, equine breeders, and operational leaders. The hypothesis takes shape, and the foundational work begins: building a product that could meet the rigor of human-quality compliance — for horses.

Lab space awaiting the work to begin — 2022
2023 First Cord
Stage Two · Validation

February — first cord collection at Coteau Grove

Foaling season at Coteau Grove Farms — a closed-herd thoroughbred breeding farm in Louisiana — and the partnership goes operational. The first umbilical cord is collected, and a year of theory and benchwork meets its first real test: can the team produce what they had been planning? Coteau Grove’s closed, single-source herd anchors sourcing, welfare, and traceability from this point forward.

Newborn foal at Coteau Grove Farms — February 2023
March 2023

The product becomes real

The first finished material is produced. The work of the prior year holds — but the team knows the harder work is just beginning.

October 2023

Initial safety study begins

The protocol for the first safety study is approved and the study formally begins — a pivotal moment for both the company and the product.

2024 Refinement
Stage Three · Course Correction

The work was tested, and so were we

Partway through the initial safety study, the data made something clear: the work needed more. Rather than push forward with a study we weren’t fully confident in, the team paused, returned to the bench, and rebuilt — refining the process and protocol to a higher standard than where we had started.

From that refinement, the redesigned clinical trial is initiated — the study that would later be published in BMC Medicine. The work demanded more, and so the team grew. The processing team expands, operational systems mature, and every step is rebuilt to be repeatable, traceable, and auditable.

Sterile processing under the redesigned protocol — 2024
2025 Published
Stage Four · Peer Review

July — Refined safety study published in BMC Medicine

The refined safety study—built to a higher standard after the 2024 redesign—is published in BMC Medicine and indexed on PubMed. The publication reflects the level of consistency and quality the team has held to from the beginning. No adverse events were reported in the study population.

<5% CV
Batch-to-Batch Consistency
on high-abundance proteins
0
Adverse Events Reported
August 2025

Clinical trial enrollment closed

The clinical trial reaches full enrollment, marking the transition from study build-out to study execution.

2025 Public Debut
Stage Five · Out of the Lab

December — equicenta® CTM debuts at AAEP

Equine Performance Labs presents equicenta® CTM — the first-in-class equine umbilical cord tissue allograft — at AAEP. After three years of head-down work, the team steps into the broader veterinary community to share, educate, and listen.

EPL team at the AAEP debut — December 2025
March 2026

ISO 13485 certification achieved

The company’s quality management system is formally certified to ISO 13485:2016 — a globally recognized standard for medical device quality systems.

2026 Forward
Stage Six · What’s Next

March — Final data point collected

The final clinical trial data point has been collected. Data analysis and study reporting are now being prepared. Study to launch soon. Click here to get updates and we’ll let you know the moment it’s out.

Veterinarian administering equicenta CTM during the clinical trial — March 2026

“The horse’s well-being comes before performance outcomes. Performance is a byproduct of proper care.” The Founding Principle

Meet Our Team

The people behind the work

Veterinary surgeons, equine breeders, biologics scientists, and operational leaders. Built around one starting point.

Heather Rogers

Heather Rogers

Chief Executive Officer
Equine Performance Labs

Dr. Gary Monteiro

Dr. Gary Monteiro, PhD

Chief Operating Officer
Equine Performance Labs

Dr. Alicia Bertone

Dr. Alicia Bertone, DVM, PhD, DACVS

Independent Clinical Consultant

Haylee Ragland

Haylee Ragland

Director of Operations
Equine Performance Labs

Megan Smith

Megan Smith

Business Development Director — East
Equine Performance Labs

Karin Williamson

Karin Williamson

Business Development Director — West
Equine Performance Labs

Abe Silfen

Abe Silfen

Director of Quality
Equine Performance Labs

Rachel Rodrigue

Rachel Rodrigue

Director of Marketing + Design
Equine Performance Labs

Keith Myers

Keith Myers

Partner
Equine Performance Labs / Coteau Grove Farms

Hunter Myers

Hunter Myers

Director of Operations
Coteau Grove Farms

Want to work with us?

We partner with veterinarians, clinics, and organizations who share the principle that put us here. Reach out — we’d like to hear from you.

Get in Touch
EPL team