SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA (December 17, 1998): Illumina, Inc. has just completed its first major round of financing, raising $8.5 million. Joining CW Group and ARCH Venture Partners, who collectively financed Illumina's seed round, were Venrock Associates and Tredegar Investments. Together CW, ARCH, Venrock and Tredegar have financed over 200 biotech and health care companies. "We are delighted to have attracted such an impressive group of venture capitalists with the experience to guide our company's development," said John Stuelpnagel, President of Illumina.
"This financing provides the resources necessary to rapidly and effectively develop our technology into commercial products," said Stuelpnagel. Using its randomly ordered microarray technology, Illumina plans on having its first platform, its Array of ArraysTM, available to its development partners within a year. The initial system will be capable of performing millions of genotyping experiments in a single microtiter plate. Extension of this system will provide array-based analysis of expression monitoring and protein monitoring.
With the recruitment of Richard J. Pytelewski as Vice President of Product Development, Illumina has also completed the formation of its core scientific management team. Mr. Pytelewski, formerly Vice President of Operations at IGEN, joins Anthony W. Czarnik, Chief Scientific Officer at Illumina, and Mark S. Chee, Vice President of Genomics at Illumina. Dr. Czarnik was formerly the Vice President of Chemistry at IRORI. Before joining Illumina, Dr. Chee was Director of Genetics Research at Affymetrix. "This team brings immediate strength to our company in the critical areas of array technologies, high throughput assay development, analytical and combinatorial chemistry, systems integration, and product development," said Robert Nelsen of ARCH Venture Partners.
Illumina has also announced the formation of its Scientific Advisory Board. The Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and inventor of Illumina's core technology is David R. Walt of Tufts University. Joining Professor Walt on the Scientific Advisory Board are Professors Christopher C. Goodnow of the Australian National University, Leroy Hood of the University of Washington, John S. Kauer of Tufts University, Paul S. Schimmel of the Scripps Institute, Terrence J. Sejnowski of the Salk Institute, and W. Clark Still of Columbia University.
"We are very pleased to join such an outstanding group of scientists at Illumina," said Bryan Roberts of Venrock Associates. "As internationally recognized experts in genomics, immunology, molecular biology, analytical and combinatorial chemistry, information processing, artificial olfaction and fiber optic sensors, these individuals bring a vast amount of knowledge to the company. This knowledge will be important as Illumina sets its scientific focus and begins to capitalize on the many potential applications of its technology."
Illumina, Inc.'s Assembled ArrayTM technology creates randomly ordered, self-assembled microarrays that enable massive Parallel-ParallelTM processing for conventional and non-conventional detection. By using fiber optics and miniature beads, Illumina packs many thousands of individual sensors into an array that fits into the typed letter "o". Initially, Illumina will fabricate these sensors to analyze DNA, RNA and protein for the discovery of new drugs and the diagnosis of disease.
Contact: John Stuelpnagel, Vice President of Business Development, Illumina Inc. 858-587-4290 x226 or stuelpnagel@illumina.com.