CRAIG VENTER, PH.D., CO-FOUNDER AND FORMER CEO, WILL REMAIN AT COMPANY AS EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN AND CONTINUE IN FULL TIME ROLE GUIDING SCIENTIFIC VISION AND STRATEGY
(SAN DIEGO, CA)—January 4, 2017—Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI), the genomics-driven, health intelligence company, today announced Cynthia Collins as the new Chief Executive Officer effective January 9, 2017. Collins, who has a successful track record and extensive leadership experience in the life sciences sector, will lead HLI and be responsible for all functions of the company including commercialization of HLI key products and strategic operations. She will also join the Board of Directors.
Venter, who is a co-founder, will relinquish the CEO role but will continue to serve as Executive Chairman of the HLI Board of Directors and will remain in a daily role leading the scientific strategy and direction of HLI.
“We are extremely pleased to have Cindy join HLI as our new CEO. Her wide-ranging experience in leading and growing commercial operations for privately-held and publicly-traded life science businesses, will be invaluable to HLI,” said Dr. Venter. “2017 will be a key year for HLI with the launch and expansion of many of our products including oncology, whole genome, HLI Knowledgebase™, HLI Search™, and the HLI Health Nucleus™. Cindy’s combination of innovative business leadership, coupled with commercialization and operations acumen in a variety of life science arenas, is the perfect skill set to bring our vision of high quality, genomic-powered products to the global marketplace.”
Collins said, “HLI represents a tremendous opportunity to change healthcare and improve patient outcomes. I cannot imagine a more perfect union of my combined experience in diagnostics, therapeutics, and life sciences and in leading organizations through multiple phases of their life cycles to create value. I believe my capabilities and experience, combined with Dr. Venter’s scientific success and vision, are highly complementary and will create a solid foundation for HLI’s future.”
Collins comes to HLI most recently from GE Healthcare where she was the CEO/ General Manager for the Cell Therapy and Purification and Analysis Businesses. Prior to that she was CEO of GE’s Clarient Diagnostics, Inc., an in vitro diagnostics business. In her three years with GE, she restructured and refocused teams and investments for multiple strategic businesses and oversaw several strategic investments in Cell Therapy, which is a strategic growth play for GE.
Prior to joining GE, Collins was recruited by the board of directors of Genvec Inc. to be president and CEO. This publicly-traded biopharmaceutical company develops therapeutics and vaccines using adenovector technologies. Under Collins’ tenure the company was able to get the first gene therapy product into clinical trial, advanced four major vaccine products for partnering and received the first approval in the US for a vaccine for Foot and Mouth Disease in cattle.
Prior to Genvec, Collins was the Group Vice President of the Cellular Analysis Business Group, a $1 billion business of Beckman Coulter, comprising 3 business units; Hematology, Flow Cytometry, and Hemostasis. Collins was recruited in to regain its market leadership positions in these businesses. In her 4 years there, prior to the acquisition of Beckman Coulter by Danaher, she was successful in growing these businesses and rebuilding the leadership team.
Collins was the President and CEO of Sequoia Pharmaceuticals, Inc. post Series B Financing. While there she recruited, and led the senior management team, developed the overall strategic plan, developed and met product development milestones and created innovative financing strategies which led to a successful Series C Financing. Under her tenure, the company succeeded in getting two new drugs through the IND process and in to clinical trials.
Before Sequoia, Collins was President of Clinical Microsensors, Inc. (now Genmark), which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola, where she directed the development and commercialization of molecular diagnostics, microarray products. While there the company completed several clinical trials, and received FDA approval their Cystic Fibrosis assay and instrument platform.
Collins also has deep experience in running large business units in multinational corporations. She spent 17 years at Baxter Healthcare Corporation having arrived there from a start-up, Pandex Laboratories, which was acquired by Baxter. Her tenure at Baxter included Vice President and General Manager level positions for the Gene and Cell Therapy, Transfusion Therapies and BioScience divisions. Her career there culminated in being named President of the Oncology business, a global pharmaceutic business she built and led which had $150 million in sales, 900 employees in more than 100 countries, and a $25 million research and development budget.
Prior to Baxter Healthcare, Collins spent six years at Abbott Laboratories in a variety of operational positions.
Collins received her MBA from The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and a Bachelor’s of Science in Microbiology from the University of Illinois.
About Human Longevity, Inc.™
Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI) is the genomics-based, heath intelligence company creating the world’s largest and most comprehensive database of whole genome, phenotype and clinical data. HLI is developing and applying large scale computing and machine learning to make novel discoveries to revolutionize the practice of medicine. HLI’s business also includes the HLI Health Nucleus, a genomic powered clinical research center which uses whole genome sequence analysis, advanced clinical imaging and innovative machine learning, along with curated personal health information, to deliver the most complete picture of individual health. For more information, please visit http://www.humanlongevity.com or http://www.healthnucleus.com.
HLI Media Contact
Heather Kowalski, hkowalski@humanlongevity.com, 858-361-0466