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Codon Devices Strengthens Commercial Capabilities With Three Key Hires
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., NOV. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Codon Devices, the leader in the emerging field of Constructive Biology(TM), announced today that it has further strengthened its rapidly growing commercial capabilities with the addition of three key individuals:
- Leda Notchey joins as Senior Director, Marketing and will report directly to President and CEO, John P. Danner. Coming from PerkinElmer Inc. where she led the $100M Life Science Research Business Unit, Ms. Notchey has over 15 years of experience in the life sciences industry. While at PerkinElmer, Ms. Notchey held multiple leadership roles and covered a broad portfolio of reagent and instrument products in various capacities, including marketing, product management, sales and service.
- Mario Alfano, coming from a leadership role in Millennium's Lead Discovery group, joins as Director, Automation and will report directly to Craig Muir, Senior Vice President, Technical Operations. Mr. Alfano brings 11 years of experience in robotic systems and instrumentation utilized in a wide variety of molecular biology and cell-based assay applications. Most recently, Mr. Alfano was responsible for Millennium's high throughput screening automation and compound management. As a leader in Millennium's Platform Technology group, he managed a core team that delivered both off-the-shelf and in-house-engineered automated systems to Expression Profiling, Oncology and other groups within Millennium.
- Tyler Aldredge, with 12 years of experience in operations leadership, automation and genomics joins as Director, Manufacturing Operations. Mr. Aldredge will also report to Craig Muir. Mr. Aldredge comes from the Broad Institute's world-renowned DNA sequencing laboratory where he was responsible for directing production operations. While at the Broad Institute, he was instrumental to the development and implementation of SOPs and process metrics to ensure cost-effective, high quality sequencing in a sophisticated factory operation.
"Both Mario and Tyler have proven capabilities in leading industrial-scale factory operations. They bring tremendous expertise will make great contributions to our team," said Craig Muir, Senior Vice President, Technical Operations.
John P. Danner, President and CEO added, "As we continue to accelerate our technology advancement and market penetration, it is increasingly important that we strengthen our world-class operational capabilities. Investing in top-notch people is critical, and I am excited by our ability to continually attract outstanding talent such as Leda, Mario and Tyler."
Codon Devices, based in Cambridge, MA, is a privately-held biotechnology company focused on enabling commercial applications of synthetic biology. Codon Devices' proprietary synthesis and design technologies improve the productivity, throughput and flexibility of its industrial, pharmaceutical and academic customers in a paradigm shift to what the company calls Constructive Biology(TM). The company's focus is on developing and delivering high-value products and design services in a variety of application areas, including engineered gene libraries, engineered cells that produce novel pharmaceuticals, improved vaccines, agricultural products, and biorefineries for the production of industrial chemicals and energy. Codon Devices' BioFAB(TM) platform uses sophisticated informatics, robotics and sequencing technologies to accurately synthesize genetic codes orders of magnitude more rapidly and cost-effectively than other currently available technology. Codon Devices is currently scaling the platform to design and construct engineered genetic devices hundreds of kilobases to megabases in length.
Founded in 2004 within Flagship Ventures, Codon Devices commenced laboratory operations in March 2005. The company announced a Series A financing round of $13 million in June 2005 and achieved first revenues in November 2005. Investors include Alloy Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Codon Devices' scientific founders include Scientific Advisory Board Chairman George Church, Harvard Medical School; Drew Endy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Joseph Jacobson, MIT Media Lab; and Jay Keasling, University of California, Berkeley.
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