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DNA Script expands leadership team with appointment of Madoo Varma as Vice President of Business Development
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., and PARIS, | October 13, 2022
DNA Script, a world leader in Enzymatic DNA Synthesis (EDS) for DNA on demand, has expanded and strengthened its leadership team with the addition of Madoo Varma, Ph.D. Varma brings more than three decades of experience in biotech R&D, marketing and business development to her role as VP, Business Development at DNA Script.
“We have tremendous opportunity to accelerate the growth of our technology platform as well as our company growth through strategic partnerships, and we’re excited to bring Madoo’s talents to our leadership team,” said Thomas Ybert, CEO and co-founder of DNA Script. “Madoo brings a wealth of experience, not only as a researcher at the lab bench but also in brokering business collaborations to advance the business and technology.”
Varma’s prior roles have spanned the continuum of the healthcare pipeline, from academic research to traditional biotech, diagnostics and life sciences tool companies to high tech companies focused on bioelectronics and digital health. With a PhD in genetics, Varma spent the first part of career in R&D at GeneLabs, Adeza Dx and Stanford University. She then leveraged her background in genomics, proteomics and cell biology to hold senior business leadership roles at HP/Agilent, Applied Biosystems (Thermo), Intel and Labcyte (Danaher). At Codex DNA, Varma led the early access collaboration agreement negotiations that secured a multimillion-dollar deal with Pfizer.
As part of her new position at DNA Script, Varma is focusing on partnerships with academia, pharma and tool companies to enhance and leverage the company’s existing portfolio. “I’ve spent my career in the life science sector, with direct, hands-on experience at the lab bench, including the use of custom oligos and the frustration of waiting for their delivery from third-party providers,” said Varma. “I’m excited to join a company that has taken a leadership position in benchtop DNA synthesis, with marked leaps of enzymatic synthesis improvement in a relatively short time. I see the market as primed for the advances in speed, autonomy, workflow control, productivity, and confidentiality that DNA Script’s SYNTAX System provides.”
Varma joins DNA Script during a time when the company has seen immense growth in hiring, financing, commercialization and collaborations. In early 2022 the company announced a $200 million Series C investment round. They continued this momentum with an expansion of their global presence in Asia Pacific as well as the Middle East for the sale, distribution and support of its products through distribution agreements as well as the launch of new synthesis kits enabling longer oligos and modifications. The company announced continued collaborations with the French Defense Innovation Agency, in liaison with the French Armament General Directorate (DGA), to detect and diagnose new pathogens, and a partnership with Wellcome Leap to accelerate the development of RNA-based products, including messenger RNA vaccines.
About DNA Script
Founded in 2014, DNA Script is a pioneering life sciences technology company developing a new, faster, more powerful and versatile way to design and manufacture nucleic acids. The company has developed an alternative to traditional DNA synthesis called Enzymatic DNA Synthesis, or EDS, allowing this technology to be accessible to labs with the first benchtop enzymatic synthesis instrument, the SYNTAX System. By putting DNA synthesis back in the lab, DNA Script aims to transform life sciences research through innovative technology that gives researchers unprecedented control and autonomy. www.dnascript.com.
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