Illumina Appoints Susan Tousi as Chief Commercial Officer & Dr. Alex Aravanis as Chief Technology Officer, Head of Research &...
May 17 2021 - 8:05AM
Business Wire
Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) today announced that it is
appointing Susan Tousi as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), and Dr.
Alex Aravanis as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Head of Research
and Product Development.
“We’re fortunate to have Susan and Alex, two of the strongest
leaders in the genomics industry, take on these large, important
roles,” said Francis deSouza, Chief Executive Officer of Illumina.
“Susan and Alex are talented and passionate executives with
successful track records of creating a compelling vision, building
great teams, delivering exceptional results, and championing our
culture. In their new roles, they will help further accelerate our
innovation roadmaps and expand our customer relationships
globally.”
Susan has more than 25 years of technical and general management
leadership at scale and has led Illumina’s global product
development since 2012. Under her leadership, Illumina delivered an
expansive portfolio of breakthrough, industry-leading products
across sequencing platforms, microarrays, library prep and
informatics, including HiSeq™ X, NovaSeq™ 6000, NextSeq™
500/550/550Dx/1000/2000, iSeq™ 100, MiSeq™ Dx, the world’s first
FDA-cleared/CE-IVD marked sequencer, the DNAflex library prep
solutions, COVIDSeq™ Test, and TruSight™ Oncology 500. She led the
successful acquisitions of Edico Genomics, BlueBee and Enancio,
which brought DRAGEN’s™ accelerated Bio-IT platform to Illumina,
and resulted in the launch of Illumina Connected Analytics. Prior
to Illumina, Susan was Corporate Vice President and General Manager
for Eastman Kodak’s Consumer Inkjet Systems, and before that, spent
10 years at Hewlett-Packard in technical and management roles. She
has received numerous business, technology, and leadership awards,
and was elected to the National Academy of Engineers in 2018. Susan
holds an MBA from UCLA and an Honors BS in Engineering Science from
Pennsylvania State University.
“I am excited to lead Illumina’s extraordinarily talented
commercial team to empower our customers around the world with
innovations that further unlock the power of the genome,” said
Susan. “I look forward to strengthening relationships between
Illumina’s research and development teams and our customers,
boosting our offerings and benefiting all. I am deeply passionate
about our products and inspired by the breathtaking technology and
portfolio we have set up for the next decade. It will take our
customers to an entirely new level of genomics innovation, and I
cannot wait to continue scaling our strong commercial engine to
deliver on this promise.”
For nearly 20 years Alex has led innovation spanning basic
research and technology development to late-stage clinical
development. He first joined Illumina in 2013 and led research to
create the first distributed comprehensive genomic profiling assay
for liquid biopsy and tumor tissue, the first exome-wide targeted
RNA assays for tumor tissue, massively parallel single cell
sequencing, and other sequencing platform technologies including
semiconductor-based detection. In 2016, Alex co-founded and served
as Chief Scientific Officer and Head of R&D at GRAIL, where he
led teams developing a multi-cancer early detection test by
combining high-intensity sequencing, data science and engineering,
including powerful machine learning approaches such as neural
networks. His team at GRAIL created one of the largest clinical
study programs ever in genomic medicine. Alex returned to Illumina
in June 2020 as CTO, leading the company’s research and technology
development and the innovation engine for next-generation
sequencing platforms and applications. Alex is an inventor on
numerous patents and publications. He has an MD and a PhD in
Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in
Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley.
“I am honored to lead Illumina’s powerful research and product
teams at a time when the impact of sequencing is accelerating
worldwide across areas including research, oncology, reproductive
health, genetic disease diagnosis and pathogen surveillance.
Illumina’s products and partnerships are helping move healthcare
toward earlier detection, faster diagnosis and precision medicine,”
said Alex. “Our technology and product roadmaps will continue to
set the pace for innovation, cost reduction, and new insights for
our customers. I look forward to hitting the gas pedal as we
accelerate other technology breakthroughs and their translation to
the clinic.”
About Illumina
Illumina is improving human health by unlocking the power of the
genome. Our focus on innovation has established us as the global
leader in DNA sequencing and array-based technologies, serving
customers in the research, clinical, and applied markets. Our
products are used for applications in the life sciences, oncology,
reproductive health, agriculture, and other emerging segments. To
learn more, visit www.illumina.com and connect with us on Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.
Use of forward-looking statements
This release contains forward-looking statements that involve
risks and uncertainties, including the expectation for lower costs
related to the storing and managing of genomic data costs. Among
the important factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those in any forward-looking statements are: (i)
challenges inherent in developing and launching new products and
services; (ii) our ability to deploy new products, services, and
applications, and to expand the markets for our technology
platforms; (iii) our ability to accelerate our innovation and
reduce customer costs; and (iv) the acceptance by customers of our
products, which may or may not meet our and their expectations,
together with other factors detailed in our filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent
filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, or in information disclosed in
public conference calls, the date and time of which are released
beforehand. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to
update these forward-looking statements, to review or confirm
analysts’ expectations, or to provide interim reports or updates on
the progress of the current quarter.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210517005289/en/
Investors: Brian Blanchett 858.291.6421 ir@illumina.com
Media: Dr. Karen Birmingham US: 646.355.2111 EMEA: +44 7500
105665 kbirmingham@illumina.com
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