On June 24, a day before Genometrix closed its doors, founder and chief executive officer Mitch Eggers resigned from the Woodlands, TX-based microarray services and gene expression software company to start a new genomics company.
Eggers said initial venture capital financing for the company will be completed within 60 to 90 days. The company will involve former employees of Genometrix, which ran out of cash in late June after canceling its initial public offering in March.
"The idea is to take things learned through Genometrix and some of the employees and put together a second venture funded through venture capital," said Eggers. "We learned in the first company that we have to have something up front. It would have been good for us as we went into the IPO phase."
The new company, Eggers said, is likely to be located either in Austin, TX, or in San Diego for financing reasons.
Robert Ellis, Genometrix''s president, has also resigned from the company to seek a new position, while David Jorden, the firm''s CFO, and Deval Lashkari, vice president of business development and marketing, have stayed on along with three other employees to either oversee the dissolution of Genometrix or to restart the company. Thirty-five other employees were laid off June 25.
"We''ll know within two weeks whether we have a realistic option of restarting the company," Jorden told GenomeWeb earlier. "If we end up on the path to liquidation, in five to eight weeks it will be consummated."