Element Biosciences Appoints Mark Aitkenhead, PhD, as Chief Commercial Officer

Dr. Aitkenhead brings 20 years of international commercial experience in the clinical and life science research industry to drive Element’s commercial efforts.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Element Biosciences Inc., developer of the Element AVITI™ System, a new and disruptive DNA sequencing platform, today announced the appointment of Mark Aitkenhead, PhD, as Chief Commercial Officer. In this role, Dr. Aitkenhead will build, guide and manage the customer-facing functions of the company, including sales, marketing, customer support and training. As a member of the executive leadership team, he will also develop and implement strategies for driving adoption of current and future products in the marketplace.

“The depth and breadth of Dr. Aitkenhead’s commercial expertise is impressive, and we are excited to have him join our leadership team,” said Molly He, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Element Biosciences. “Throughout his career, he has demonstrated that he can develop and lead high-growth, high-performing commercial teams, and under his leadership, Element will continue to bring transformative solutions to the market that will empower more scientists and accelerate genomic discoveries.”

Prior to joining Element, Dr. Aitkenhead worked in a variety of leadership positions at Thermo Fisher Scientific since 2003, including most recently, General Manager for Cellular Analysis Instrumentation and Global Commercial Leader for the Clinical Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Division. In the latter, he was accountable for the sales strategy and execution of the entire Ion Torrent NGS portfolio, a leading provider of clinical NGS instrumentation, assays and consumables in oncology, applied and research labs. During his tenure at Thermo Fisher, Dr. Aitkenhead also worked in technical and application support, field sales and global customer care strategy. He received both his PhD in Anatomy and BMedSci in Biomedical Sciences from The Queen’s University of Belfast in Northern Ireland.

“I look forward to working with the team at Element to democratize access to genomics for the research and diagnostic markets with the recent launch of the AVITI™ System, a benchtop sequencer that offers an unrivaled combination of performance, cost and flexibility,” said Dr. Aitkenhead. “I am honored to be a part of a company that is disrupting next generation sequencing so researchers can expand the boundaries of science and have it all.”

About Element Biosciences, Inc.

Element Biosciences is a multi-disciplinary life science company currently focused on developing disruptive DNA sequencing technology for research and diagnostic markets. Through innovating every fundamental element of a sequencing system, Element will empower customers with affordable high-quality data and an improved user experience, which in turn will accelerate scientific discoveries and broaden the use of genomic medicine. Learn more at elementbiosciences.com.