Gen9 Announces Appointment of Kevin Munnelly as President and CEO

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gen9, Inc., a pioneer in the development of scalable technologies for synthesizing genes, today announced the appointment of Kevin Munnelly as President and Chief Executive Officer. The company also announced the appointment of Martin Goldberg, Ph.D., as Chief Operating Officer.

“Our next-generation gene synthesis technologies have the potential to speed up the innovation process by reducing costs and time to design, build and test new DNA constructs.”

Gen9 has developed a unique technology to synthesize DNA constructs and has used it to build a novel fabrication capability for next-generation gene synthesis known as the BioFab^® tool. Each tool has the capacity to generate tens of thousands of synthetic gene fragments per year in just a few square feet of laboratory space. Today, Gen9 is manufacturing and shipping double-stranded GeneBits™ DNA constructs, or gene fragments from 500 to 1,024 base pairs long.

“Just as electronics from chips have reshaped virtually every industry, so too will genes from chips. Cellular factories are becoming ubiquitous in the same way that silicon chips are today, and they will be delivering high-value products in every imaginable enterprise,” said George Church, Ph.D., Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School and Gen9 co-founder and Board member. “The biggest hurdle in igniting large-scale adoption of synthetic biology has been the time-consuming and costly processes to synthesize genes. Under Kevin’s leadership, Gen9 is poised to create a biosynthesis marketplace with the capacity to efficiently modernize multibillion-dollar industries such as biofuels, enzymes, pharmaceuticals, chemicals — and even electronics.”

“We are on the cusp of a very exciting time in synthetic biology and industrial manufacturing, and Gen9 is well positioned to play a leadership role in building a comprehensive marketplace for gene synthesis,” said Mr. Munnelly. “Our next-generation gene synthesis technologies have the potential to speed up the innovation process by reducing costs and time to design, build and test new DNA constructs.”

Mr. Munnelly has more than 20 years of industry experience in molecular biology, chemistry, software development, instrument manufacturing and statistical analysis. Prior to joining Gen9, he was General Manager in Life Technologies’ global next-generation qPCR business, where he was responsible for a multimillion-dollar business segment as well as the development of custom genomics solutions with the company’s collaborators and end-user scientists. Prior to Life Technologies, Mr. Munnelly was Vice President and General Manager of BioTrove Inc, which was acquired by Life Technologies in 2009. At BioTrove, he led the research, development, manufacturing and commercial organizations. Prior to BioTrove, Mr. Munnelly was a Senior Manager of the Platform Technology group at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, which developed new technologies for drug discovery, development, personalized medicine and biotherapeutics manufacturing. Earlier in his career, he held many different scientific roles in drug discovery, assay development, statistical analysis and platform development. Mr. Munnelly holds an A.B. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Bowdoin College and an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship from Babson College.

Dr. Goldberg joined Gen9 from Affymetrix, where he worked for 17 years, most recently as Senior Vice President of R&D overseeing the execution of the company’s technology and product development. Previously, he held a variety of positions in the research, development, operations and commercial arms of Affymetrix, starting with the establishment and management of the first GeneChip^© manufacturing facility. Before joining Affymetrix, Dr. Goldberg worked for IBM at both the T.J. Watson Research Center and East Fishkill manufacturing sites on the research, development and manufacturing transfer of advanced permanent dielectric photolithographic materials. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at San Diego.

Founded in 2009 by Joseph Jacobson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), George Church (Harvard Medical School) and Drew Endy (Stanford University), Gen9 is supported with financing from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, PBM Capital Group and a number of angel investors, including Scott A. Schoen and Weili Dai.

For more information, please visit www.Gen9Bio.com.

About Gen9

Gen9 is building on advances in synthetic biology to power a scalable fabrication capability that will significantly increase the world’s capacity to produce DNA content. The privately held company’s next-generation gene synthesis technology allows for the high-throughput, automated production of DNA constructs at lower cost and higher accuracy than previous methods on the market. Founded by world leaders in synthetic biology, Gen9 aims to ensure the constructive application of synthetic biology in industries ranging from enzyme and chemical production to pharmaceuticals and biofuels. Gen9 is based in Cambridge, Mass and can be found online at www.Gen9bio.com.

Gen9, GeneBits and BioFAB are trademarks or registered trademarks of Gen9, Inc. All other brands may be trademarks of their respective holders.