Illumina Ventures: Ron Mazumder, Lisa Alderson
Illumina Ventures announced that Abhijit "Ron" Mazumder has joined as a partner and Lisa Alderson has joined as an entrepreneur in residence.
Most recently, Mazumder was VP and global head of oncology biomarker development and companion diagnostics at Genentech. He has also developed diagnostics and biomarkers for Johnson and Johnson and Merck. He holds a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Maryland and an MBA from Lehigh University.
Alderson cofounded and served as CEO of Genome Medical. She was also chief commercial officer and chief strategy officer at Invitae. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Element Biosciences: Shawn Levy
Element Biosciences has promoted Shawn Levy to chief scientific officer. He will retain the title of senior VP of applications. Levy joined Element a year ago after 20 years in academia where he developed and led a number of core facilities and genome centers, including at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology and Vanderbilt University.
Epigenomics: Heino von Prondzynski
Epigenomics said this week that Heino von Prondzynski, chairman of the supervisory board, will resign from his position and the board effective March 31 for health reasons. Von Prondzynski was a member of the board from May 2007 to March 2010, and has been chairman since May 2012. Prior to that he served in numerous roles internationally, including as CEO of Roche Diagnostics and a member of Roche's corporate executive committee.
Exagen: Tina Nova
Exagen has elected Tina Nova as executive chair of its board of directors. Nova succeeds Brian Birk, who served as chair of the board since 2018 and will remain as a board member.
Nova currently serves as president of Veracyte's CLIA business. She was previously president and CEO of Decipher Biosciences until March 2021, when Veracyte acquired Decipher. Nova has also been CEO of Molecular Stethoscope and senior VP and general manager of oncology at Illumina. She was the cofounder, president, and CEO of Genoptix, which was acquired by Novartis in 2011. Nova also serves on the board of Azenta and has been a board member with Veracyte and Arena Pharmaceuticals. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Riverside and a B.S. in biological sciences from UC Irvine.
BillionToOne: Gary Palmer
BillionToOne appointed Gary Palmer as chief medical officer for oncology. Palmer previously served as CMO at Tempus Labs, vice president of medical affairs at Foundation Medicine, and vice president of medical affairs at Genomic Health.
Genomic Vision: Frederic Hammel
Genomic Vision, a French biotech company specializing in structural genomics and functional genome analysis, has appointed Frederic Hammel as chief operating officer. Hammel was previously CEO of Ethera, a company that produces air-quality products. Prior to that he was CEO at Platine Pharma Services (later acquired by a BioMérieux subsidiary). He has also served as CEO of TxCell, a clinical-stage developer of cell-based immunotherapies.
Almaden Genomics: David Gascoigne
Almaden Genomics, an IBM Research bioinformatics spinoff, has appointed David Gascoigne as CEO. Gascoigne joins the company from Sutherland Global Services, where he was head of healthcare analytics. Prior to that he was chief operating officer of GNS Healthcare. He has also served as general manager of analytics services for Iqvia and executive VP of analytics and innovation for Symphony Health; and was a partner in digital analytics with Accenture. He holds an advanced degree in applied statistics from Sheffield University.
Ancestry: Brian Donnelly
Brian Donnelly has been promoted to chief commercial officer of Ancestry. He joined the genealogy company in 2021 as senior VP and general manager of the AncestryDNA business. Previously, he held general management as well as commercial and marketing roles at companies including Amazon, Illumina, Sequenom, and Codex DNA. Donnelly holds a B.S. in business administration and marketing from Elon University and an MBA and J.D. from Rutgers University.
For additional recent items on executive appointments, promotions, and departures in the omics and molecular diagnostics space, please see the People in the News page on our website.