Press Releases
HTG Board of Directors
High Throughput Genomics Board of Directors.
Harry A. George
Chairman
Mr. George has more than 27 years of experience with successful rapid growth technology-related companies, serving as founder, operating officer, or investor.
From 1981 to 1989, Mr. George was co-founder, director, and vice-president of finance for Interleaf, a pioneer in electronic publishing. Prior to that, he was co-founder, director and vice-president of finance of Kurzwell Computer Products. Currently, he is co-founder of Solstice Capital.
Currently serving on: the Board of Directors for: Lumidigm, High Throughput Genomics (HTG), CellzDirect, Regenesis Biomedical and AmpliMed. Other positions: Member of Investors’ Circle, member of the conference screening panel of the Arizona Venture Capital Conference (1997-2003), member of the advisory committee of the MBA program at the University of Arizona, Eller School of Business, advisor to the Arizona Center for Innovation, Trustee of the Arizona-Sonoma Desert Museum and the Tucson Museum of Art, Vice-Chair of Treasure the Desert Capital Campaign.
Donald Grimm
Mr. Grimm’s distinguished career at Eli Lily & Company included a variety of key management positions in the company’s pharmaceutical, biotechnological and medical device businesses. He served as Director of Worldwide Pharmaceutical Pricing, Director of Pharmaceutical Market Research, Director of West Coast Pharmaceutical Sales, and President/CEO and Chairman of Hybritech, Inc. While at Lily’s Hybritech, he orchestrated the development of Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA), the most significant new cancer diagnostic test ever developed for men. The company’s increased from $50 million to $150 million under Mr. Grimm’s leadership.
Other positions of responsibility have included:
Chairman, Pacific Biotech (a Lily company)
V.P. Medical Devices & Diagnostics, Eli Lily & Company
CEO, Board of Directors, Telios Pharmaceuticals
Chairman, President, Founder, Strategic Design (1994 – current)
West Coast Managing Director, Copenhagen Capacity
Chairman, San Diego Mayor’s Task Force on Effectiveness and Efficiency in City Government
Chairman, San Diego County Economic Advisory Board
Mr. Grimm currently sits on the Board of Directors for: Invitrogen, Aegis, Angstrom, ATI, CellzDirect, Q3DM, Green Cancer Center at Scripps Clinic, the UCSD Cancer Center Foundation, the Advisory Board of Scripps Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy Board of Visitors, Limbaugh Center of the University of Pittsburgh.
Bruce E. Seligmann, Ph.D.
Founder and Chief Science Officer
An internationally recognized scientist, Dr. Bruce Seligmann began his scientific career at the NIH-NIAID, Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, and then joined Ciba-Geigy (Novartis). There he led the drug discovery programs within the Department of Molecular Biology, Inflammation, and Osteoarthritis Research. He went on to join the start-up biotech company, Selectide, where as V.P. of R&D, Dr. Seligmann initiated the development of non-peptide small molecule combinatorial chemistry (combichem). He established drug discovery programs and selected compounds which produced a novel Factor Xa drug that advanced into clinical trials. After serving as Center Director upon the acquisition of Selectide by MMD (Aventis), Dr. Seligmann went on to found both SIDDCO and HTG, which developed and markets the quantitative Nuclease Protection Assay (qNPA™).
As one of the inventors and developers of the intellectual property forming the basis of the ArrayPlate and qNPA™ technology, Dr. Seligmann’s vision is to provide this time and cost saving technology to assist the advancement of research, drug discovery and the development of better therapies and diagnostics, which ultimately provides better patient care and quality of life.
John M. Holliman, III “Jock”
Jock Holliman has more than 20 years of experience in the venture capital industry in the southwestern United States. Following a career in corporate commercial banking with Bank of America and Chemical New York, Mr. Holliman joined Alliance Business Investment Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1982. Three years later, Mr. Holliman accepted the newly created position as managing director of Valley National Bank of Arizona’s venture capital program. From a $22 million capital base, Holliman oversaw 22 direct and three indirect investments in creating a successful portfolio. In early 1993, Holliman formed Valley Ventures, L.P., a $10 million institutional secondary partnership, to purchase all venture capital assets from Valley Bank. Based upon the success of Valley Ventures, Holliman formed Valley Ventures II, L.P. closing at $29.4 million in April, 1999.
Jock Holliman holds undergraduate and graduate business degrees from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, as well as a master’s degree in international management from the Thunderbird School of International Management in Phoenix, Arizona. Throughout his venture capital career, Holliman has been active in venture industry groups including NASBIC, the industry trade group in Washington, D.C. He served on its board of directors for five years through 1991, including two years on the executive committee. Holliman has served on 30 private and public company boards including Pilgrim American and OrthoLogic, notable Valley Ventures’ winners.
Larry Senour
Larry Senour has 20 years of healthcare experience, including the last 11 years with Merck & Co., Inc., and 8 years in various business development and licensing roles where he has executed over 45 transactions. He currently serves as Executive Director, U.S. Business Development, and is responsible for evaluating, structuring, negotiating and executing various strategic alliances, product divestitures, acquisitions, licenses and new business ventures. Larry is also responsible for Merck Capital Ventures, which invests in emerging businesses with technologies in areas related to the discovery, development and commercialization of pharmaceuticals and related healthcare services.
Prior to joining Merck, Larry served as Manager at Deloitte Consulting and Regional Manager with Healthcare Services Group. Larry holds an undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University and a M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.
Tim (TJ) Johnson
Chief Executive Officer
Tim (TJ) Johnson, an accomplished management executive, joins HTG from LVC Consulting, where he was a partner with the firm. Prior to LVC, Mr. Johnson was a SVP with Ventana Medical Systems, where he held responsibilities for Manufacturing Operations, Quality, Strategic Marketing, Corporate Development, and Product Technical Support during his 5 years with the company.
Prior to Ventana Medical Systems, Johnson was vice president of global marketing at Hill-Rom Company a subsidiary of Hillenbrand Industries. With Hill-Rom Johnson also served as VP/GM of Hill-Rom Airshields, handled North American operations, and lead the global strategic planning team. He has also served as a senior consulting manager at Price Waterhouse and has sales and operational experience at Batesville Casket Company, Caloric Corporation and Frito-Lay. Johnson earned a B.S. in business from Indiana University.
Mr. Johnson also serves on the Board of Directors for Kalypto Medical.
Jim Weersing
A noted entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Mr. Weersing brings a wealth of experience in the healthcare marketplace to HTG’s Board of Directors. His distinguished resume includes involvement with companies developing clinical diagnostics, ultrasound imaging technology, blood glucose monitoring devices, and orthopedics.
Mr. Weersing is acting Chairman of Kalypto Medical, a former Director at Ventana Medical Systems, and former managing general partner of MBW Ventures. He graduated from Stanford University with a BSME, and an MBA in 1962.
Major Investors
HTG is a privately held corporation.
Major investors include:
Merck Capital Ventures
Merck Capital Ventures is a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc. founded in November 2000. Merck Capital Ventures (MCV) actively invests in emerging businesses with interesting technology in areas related to the commercialization, distribution and delivery of pharmaceuticals and related healthcare services.
The focus of MCV is to invest in technologies that accelerate innovation related to the pharmaceutical business and other sectors of health care delivery. While these new technologies have impacted some sectors of healthcare, we are only at the very beginning of understanding and capitalizing on the potential to transform many long-established processes in the pharmaceutical industry and the health care field as a whole.
Solstice Capital
With offices in Tucson and Boston, Solstice Capital seeks superior venture capital returns for its limited partners through investments in seed- and early-stage companies in the alternative energy, education, environmental, life sciences and information technology industries.
The first Solstice fund, formed in 1995, invested in 21 portfolio companies. In July 2001, Solstice Capital formed Solstice Capital II Limited Partnership, a $62 million early-stage venture fund. Solstice Capital currently has $85 million of capital under management.
Valley Ventures
Valley Ventures is an institutionally-funded venture capital partnership with over $70 million under management and offices in Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque. The general partner is a team of experienced venture capitalists and managers dedicated to the achievement of superior investment returns by investing in and assisting emerging growth companies in the greater Southwest U.S.
In addition to providing capital to growing companies, Valley Ventures assists management in strategic planning, management development, gaining access to key industry experts and advising on capital formation events.
Village Ventures vv_logo.gif
Village Ventures invests in promising opportunities identified by its investment professionals, as well as the local managers of its partner funds.
The partner funds that make up the unique deal-sourcing network of Village Ventures are located in emerging U.S. technology centers. These are regions that are home to exceptional innovation arising from rich, intellectual capital, low costs of living and doing business, and a high quality of life – markets often overlooked by traditional venture capitalists and therefore markets that offer excellent opportunities.
Company History
High Throughput Genomics (HTG) was founded in 1997 with the mission to develop a universal molecular biology-based platform to improve the pharmaceutical drug discovery process. Since that time, HTG has expanded the utility of qNPA™ technology into the fields of gene expression profiling, Translational Medicine and Diagnostic applications and the measurement of miRNA.
Our quantitative Nuclease Protection Assay (qNPA™) Technology is designed to deliver robust and reliable results with a simple, automatable protocol. qNPA technology is ideal for detecting small yet important changes in gene expression levels which other gene expression platforms cannot reliably detect. The unique combination of precision and accuracy with the fast, no RNA extraction protocol provides researchers with a tool ideal for gene expression analysis in moderate to high sample volume research settings using a wide array of sample types.
2009
September
HTG launches its first microarray-based product, the qNPA miRNA Microarray for miRNA expression profiling
March
HTG reaches an agreement with Clinical Reference Laboratories (CRL) to provide qNPA Technology in a CLIA certified lab setting
2008
November
Fred Pollock joins HTG as VP of Corporate Development
August
HTG launches its first miRNA product, the qCustom miRNA ArrayPlate
April
BJ Kerns joins HTG to lead the commercial and diagnostic strategies
March
HTG receives a Phase I SBIR grant for $300k to develop a microfluidics diagnostic qNPA platform to monitor white blood cell response.
January
TJ Johnson joins HTG as CEO and President.
2007
HTG and the University of Arizona Bio5 Center for Chemical Genomics and Translational Research receive $2M seed funding from Science Foundation Arizona.
September
HTG receives a Phase I SBIR grant for $300k to develop a 1600 gene high density qNPA™ array from NIMH.
2005
December
Don Grimm joins HTG’s Board of Directors. Company records its second profitable operating quarter.
September
HTG records its first profitable operating quarter.
July
HTG purchases print and hybridization acceleration IP from Sigma Aldrich.
April
Company completes its “Series B” round of financing.
Intellectual Property
HTG has intellectual properties associated with four advanced and innovative technologies including:
- Universal Arrays
- Quantitative Nuclease Protection Assay (qNPA™)
- Array printing
- Hybridization acceleration
Microarrays have transformed pharmaceutical research and development and life science research by allowing scientists to measure many different molecules in a single sample simultaneously.
Yet, while high-density microarrays have been valuable in identifying potential gene targets, their imprecision, cost, and the lack of consistency between the microarrays available from different vendors have limited their use for other aspects of drug discovery and diagnostics.
HTG’s ArrayPlate™ product is based on Universal Array IP, a technology that provides scientists, researchers and technicians with the flexibility to customize an ArrayPlate on the bench top using a simple reagent-addition protocol to measure a unique set of targets.
HTG technology combines the Universal Array with its quantitative Nuclease Protection Assay (qNPA) to provide clients with a breakthrough quantitative gene expression platform. The ArrayPlate product, based on these two technologies, delivers the Universal Array’s flexibility and qNPA’s excellent sensitivity, quantitative accuracy, precision and multiplexed, high-sample throughput to significantly enhance gene expression measurement.
The HTG Management Group
Our management team has seasoned veterans of in the biotech industry.
Tim (TJ) Johnson
Chief Executive Officer
Tim (TJ) Johnson, an accomplished management executive, joins HTG from LVC Consulting, where he was a partner with the firm. Prior to LVC, Mr. Johnson was a SVP with Ventana Medical Systems, where he held responsibilities for Manufacturing Operations, Quality, Strategic Marketing, Corporate Development, and Product Technical Support during his 5 years with the company.
Prior to Ventana Medical Systems, Johnson was vice president of global marketing at Hill-Rom Company a subsidiary of Hillenbrand Industries. With Hill-Rom Johnson also served as VP/GM of Hill-Rom Airshields, handled North American operations, and lead the global strategic planning team. He has also served as a senior consulting manager at Price Waterhouse. Johnson earned a B.S. in business from Indiana University.
Mr. Johnson also serves on the Board of Directors for Kalypto Medical.
Bruce E. Seligmann, Ph.D.
Founder, Board Member and Chief Science Officer
An internationally recognized scientist, Dr. Bruce Seligmann began his scientific career at the NIH-NIAID, Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, and then joined Ciba-Geigy (Novartis). There he led the drug discovery programs within the Department of Molecular Biology, Inflammation, and Osteoarthritis Research. He went on to join the start-up biotech company, Selectide, where as V.P. of R&D, Dr. Seligmann initiated the development of non-peptide small molecule combinatorial chemistry (combichem). He established drug discovery programs and selected compounds which produced a novel Factor Xa drug that advanced into clinical trials. After serving as Center Director upon the acquisition of Selectide by MMD (Aventis), Dr. Seligmann went on to found both SIDDCO and HTG, which developed and markets the quantitative Nuclease Protection Assay (qNPA™). As one of the inventors and developers of the intellectual property forming the basis of the ArrayPlate and qNPA™ technology, Dr. Seligmann’s vision is to provide this time and cost saving technology to assist the advancement of research, drug discovery and the development of better therapies and diagnostics, which ultimately provides better patient care and quality of life.
His philosophy is better tools mean better research, better research means better results, and better results mean better patient outcomes.
Kirk A. Collamer, MBA, CPA
CFO
Mr. Collamer provides HTG with the experience and vision necessary to strategically manage its financial, sales and corporate growth as well as maximize its resources. His previous experience includes guiding two start-up firms to and through IPO’s, and obtaining public and private financing for numerous other companies.
His impressive 30-year career includes finance (serving as Chief Financial Officer for Ameritech/Telecom Corp. of New Zealand, Muzak, Pointshare and Coinstar), accounting (as controller of Aladdin Industries and Brown-Forman/Jack Daniels Distillery) and planning. His work encompasses both large Fortune 500 companies as well as start-ups.
Billie-Jo (BJ) Kerns
Senior Vice-President, Sales and Marketing
BJ Kerns joined High Throughput Genomics (HTG) as Vice President, Strategic Marketing and Business Development, in March 2008 and was promoted to SVP of Sales / Marketing in early 2009 where she is responsible for all commercial and marketing activities globally. In this position Ms. Kerns is responsible for developing and implementing HTG’s strategic plan and business development activities. A significant area of her responsibility is managing HTG’s emerging diagnostics business, specifically overseeing the development of the diagnostic content for the qNPA system.
Most recently, Ms. Kerns held the position of Director of Integrated Solutions and Molecular Diagnostics at Promega Corporation, Inc. Previously she held several positions at Ventana Medical Systems, Inc., including Director of Women’s Health, Director of Strategic Marketing, and Senior Director of Product Technical Support in Operations. Ms. Kerns has also managed a variety of functions at BioGenex and Becton Dickinson, including Business Development, Sales and Marketing, Research and Development, and Project Management.
Ms. Kerns brings with her more than 27 years of Diagnostics experience, including launching Ventana Medical System’s first FDA approved companion diagnostic PATHWAY® HER-2. She has an academic background in science and medicine which augments her general management, sales, marketing, and business development skills. While at Duke University Medical Center, Ms. Kerns published 60 scientific papers, 38 abstracts, and presented over 30 workshops in her career to date.
Ms. Kerns received an A.A.S. in Medical Technology from Elon College in Elon, North Carolina and a B.S in Health Care Management from Century University in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has received a certification in Managing Strategic Resources from Darden Executive Education at the University of Virginia.
Frederick Pollock
Vice-President, Strategic Accounts and Corporate Development
Mr. Pollock joined HTG in December of 2008 and has responsibility for expandsion into new strategic accounts and new bio-marker collaborations through our key collaborator program. Prior to HTG, Mr. Pollock performed management, sales and business development roles at Affymetrix. His accomplishments at Affymetrix included implementing a global alliance management program and developing strategies for sales expansions which resulted in securing $41 million in additional revenues.
Prior to Affymetrix, Pollock worked at Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, now part of GE Healthcare, for 11 years. During his time at Amersham, he served as a business unit manager where he was responsible for managing sales in the central United States. He has also held positions at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Castle Movers and Photon Marketing.
Pollock earned a B.A. in Molecular Biology from the University of North Texas.
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Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D.C.
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