TwinStrand Biosciences’ co-founder Jesse Salk has stepped down from the CEO position, in keeping with a press release issued by the Seattle biotech firm Friday.
Salk will stay as chief scientific officer and a member of the board. Healthcare business veteran Chad Brown, a former exec at Nanostring and Qiagen, has stepped in as interim CEO. Brown can be a board member at TwinStrand.
The management change comes amid stories of layoffs on the 7-year-old gene sequencing startup. A number of staff posted on LinkedIn this week about being laid off, with some noting that “practically 50%” of the corporate’s workforce was minimize.
The corporate has greater than 100 staff, in keeping with LinkedIn.
We’ve reached out to TwinStrand for extra particulars and we’ll replace after we hear again.
TwinStrand, which spun out of the College of Washington, raised $50 million in a Sequence B spherical in Could 2021. On the time, the startup had 50 staff.
The corporate develops expertise in each gene sequencing and analyzing sequencing outcomes to assist discover what the corporate calls “genetic needles within the haystack.” In 2020, the corporate launched its first industrial merchandise.
TwinStrand buyers embody California-based Part 32, which led the Sequence B spherical, together with Soleus Capital, Janus Henderson Buyers, Madrona Enterprise Group, Ridgeback Capital, and Alexandria Enterprise Investments.
The corporate earlier this yr employed Goran Pljevaljcic, former Bionano Genomics exec, as chief industrial officer.
Salk can be a medical assistant professor on the UW, and is an attending doctor on the VA Puget Sound in Seattle. He holds an MD/PhD with honors from the UW. Salk is the grandson of the late Jonas Salk, the scientist who found and developed the polio vaccine.
A number of Seattle-area startups have laid off staff this yr amid the broader financial downturn and slowdown in enterprise capital funding.