NOOSAVILLE, Australia & SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.
Provectus Algae (Provectus), an Australian biotechnology company specialising in the optimisation of algae to produce high-value compounds for use in a wide array of industries and applications, today appointed Tim Lu, M.D., Ph.D., to its board of directors. Dr. Lu is co-founder and CEO of therapeutics and synthetic biology company Senti Biosciences.
The board appointment comes at a strategic time for Provectus. Following a successful seed funding round last year, the company is focused on advancing the development of its high-throughput experimentation platform and standardizing synthetic biology toolsets to enable rapid product development capabilities.
Dr. Lu brings essential expertise in computer programming, electrical engineering and synthetic biology to the company, having pioneered these technologies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and building Senti Biosciences into a leader in gene circuit technology for cell therapies.
“Tim has been there before and has the skills and experience to help guide our in-house capabilities to the next level. We couldn’t be more excited to welcome him onto our board,” said Provectus CEO and Founder Nusqe Spanton. “Tim’s proven track record in the field of synthetic biology and computational biology will enable us to unlock the potential of our platform more quickly.”
Provectus is carving a unique path through the growing field of synthetic biology companies. By leveraging the vast metabolic potential and sustainable production capabilities of billion-year-old microalgae, the company has the potential to produce the world’s most sought after specialty ingredients.
The Provectus platform enables sustainable production and addresses supply chain challenges by providing end-to-end services from product development to large scale production in microalgae. Since closing its seed round last year, Provectus has been in full swing developing products and engineering their proprietary production systems at its Noosa-based facility in Queensland.
Spanton continued, “It’s been an exhilarating year for Provectus. We have grown the team rapidly with double digit quality hires in eight short months across a team now moving at an eye-watering pace.”
The company’s product pipeline includes two recombinant proteins developed by the Provectus team along with a suite of natural products in development, one of which already has a commercial agreement with a world-leading food and beverage ingredients supplier. Each of these products fit three market segments of focus including food and beverage, animal health, and agricultural chemicals.
ABOUT PROVECTUS ALGAE
Provectus Algae is an Australian biotech company that programs algae to produce the world’s most valuable speciality ingredients. By accelerating nature, their team is able to optimise unique microalgae to produce a whole new range of natural products, in a process described as “precision photosynthesis”. Using next-generation techniques the company has also developed a synthetic biology stack that complements and competes with existing production platforms to deliver high-performance and sustainable products.
To learn more, please visit https://provectusalgae.com.
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CONTACT
Erik Clausen, 781-608-7091, eclausen@cglife.com