NEW YORK, June 13 – Nanogen said Wednesday that its chief technical officer and a company co-founders, Michael Heller, was leaving his position to take a job as a professor at an unnamed university.
"We are grateful for Dr. Heller's outstanding contributions to Nanogen over his approximately nine years here," Howard Birndorf, chairman of Nanogen’s board.
"He has assisted Nanogen in innumerable ways and has been a key inventor and contributor to the research and development of Nanogen's intellectual property and unique technologies.” Birndorf said.
Heller will remain an exclusive consultant to Nanogen, a San Diego-based maker of microelectronic DNA chips.
The company did not announce a replacement.
Over the past few months Nanogen has undergone a series of upper level management changes. Recently, Nanogen announced that Vance Randy White would replace founder Howard Birndorf as CEO. Birndorf will remain chairman of the company's board.
That appointment followed an April announcement that Nanogen had hired Gerald Wills, formerly the chief financial officer of Trega Biosciences, as its chief financial officer. Wills took over from Kieran Gallahue, who until then had been serving as both CFO and president. Gallahue is remaining in the role of president.