Roche Announces Thomas Schinecker as New President of 454 Life Sciences

BRANFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--454 Life Sciences, a center of excellence of Roche’s (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) business unit Applied Science, and developer of the innovative GS Junior and GS FLX+ Systems for high-throughput DNA sequencing, announced that effective August 1, 2011, Dr. Thomas Schinecker is appointed Lifecycle Leader for Sequencing and President of 454 Life Sciences, Inc., in Branford, Connecticut, USA, reporting to Robert Yates, Head of Applied Science.

“Thomas’s extensive experience in oncology and diagnostics make him the perfect guide for 454 Life Sciences’ future development.”

Dr. Schinecker is currently the Diagnostics General Manager of Sweden, located in Bromma, a suburb of Stockholm. Dr. Schinecker’s extensive background and experience of over eight years at Roche will be instrumental in guiding 454 Life Sciences into the next generation of pyrosequencing. Dr. Schinecker holds a PhD in oncology, studying at the New York University. He then excelled in several leadership positions in the Sales & Marketing organization of Roche Diagnostics Austria, starting his career at Roche in the Perspectives Program in 2003. With his success in several key management positions within Roche Diagnostics, Dr. Schinecker brings the required organizational and operating skills to 454 Life Sciences’ highly innovative and accurate long sequence read technology. 454 Sequencing Systems are used productively by large numbers of life science researchers in cancer, infectious disease, immunogenetics, drug discovery, agriculture and other disciplines, resulting in more than 1,000 peer-reviewed publications.

“We are very excited to announce Dr. Thomas Schinecker as new President of 454 Life Sciences, and look forward to expanding Roche’s sequencing position as a leading genomics solution provider,” stated Robert Yates, Head of Roche Applied Science. “Thomas’s extensive experience in oncology and diagnostics make him the perfect guide for 454 Life Sciences’ future development.

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world’s largest biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based cancer diagnostics and a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche’s personalized healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients. In 2009, Roche had over 80,000 employees worldwide and invested almost 10 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The Group posted sales of 49.1 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information: www.roche.com.

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