Meiogenix Hires Ricardo Garcia de Alba as CEO to Lead the Company through its Next Phase of Growth and Evolution to Serve a Broad Market and Customer Base
17 Junio 2024 - 8:17AM
Business Wire
Company Brings On Industry Leader to Address
Increasing Demand for Solutions that Unlock Natural Genetic
Diversity of Crops to Deliver Advanced Variety Development
Meiogenix, Inc. an agriculture biotech company that develops
disruptive new products based on its proprietary chromosome editing
technology, has named Ricardo Garcia de Alba as the company’s new
chief executive officer. As CEO, Garcia de Alba will lead Meiogenix
toward its mission of helping farmers address challenges involved
in the development of advanced varieties, bringing them solutions
that unlock the natural genetic diversity of crops.
Garcia de Alba will succeed Luc Mathis, Ph.D., who has led the
company for the previous 4 years. Garcia de Alba comes to Meiogenix
after serving 15 years at Corteva Agriscience, where he held
multiple leadership positions in the company's Seed and Crop
Protection businesses. Most recently, he led the company’s Global
Row Crop Herbicide and Nitrogen Management Portfolio, overseeing
weed management responsibilities for the Enlist™ System and the
company’s corn, soybean, cotton, and sugarcane business. His
background also includes serving in several executive business
development, engineering, and sales and marketing roles for Dupont
and other leading manufacturing companies across the U.S., Brazil,
Mexico, the U.K. and Spain.
“Meiogenix is now a Global Company, established in the U.S.,
that serves a broad, global market and customer base. The deep
Agribusiness perspective and experience Ricardo brings, having
helped Corteva in positioning farmers for growth with advanced
tools, technologies, and strategies, will propel Meiogenix to
achieve its vision. We welcome Ricardo and look forward to working
with him to take Meiogenix through the next stage of its growth,”
said Johan Cardoen, former CEO of CropDesign, former Managing
Director of Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB) and
Meiogenix Chairman of the Board.
Global needs for more sustainable agriculture call for the rapid
development of plant and crop varieties that require less inputs,
less water and with higher nutritious qualities. Meiogenix has
developed an innovative approach to common problems in agriculture,
addressing key global food and industrial challenges. Meiogenix is
applying gene and chromosome editing technologies to accelerate and
rationalize plants’ natural process of generation of biodiversity
through the random mixing of parental genomes during plant sexual
reproduction. This helps expedite the lengthy process of plant
varieties selection and also leads to increased biodiversity, lost
during the systematic selection of crops for high yield and long
shelf life. The ability to restore a plant's immunity to pests and
diseases and improve quality, taste and flavor in many crops also
has the potential to revolutionize the AgriFood Tech sector.
“I am grateful to join an organization with innovation that has
such extraordinary potential, having been so successfully developed
by a top-performing team,” said Garcia de Alba. "Ever since I was
introduced to Meiogenix for the first time, the company, the
technology and the team involved captured my interest, excitement
and enthusiasm. I look forward to leading the team through this
exciting and critical part of the company’s journey.”
In December 2021, under Luc Mathis's leadership, Meiogenix
closed $13 million (€11 million) Series A financing round, led by
Sofinnova Partners, with participation from Genoa Ventures,
Bpifrance, Casdin Capital and Alexandria Venture Investments.
“The solid work of our development team has positioned us for
exciting growth opportunities. The proof that the technology is
effective in both monocots and dicots plants opens the path to the
development of commercial applications, products and promising
partnerships,” said Mathis. “I am confident that, under Ricardo’s
leadership, the next phase of Meiogenix’s development will bring a
new level of innovation and I look forward to seeing a whole
spectrum of new possibilities unfold.”
For more information on Meiogenix, please visit
https://meiogenix.com/
About Meiogenix
Meiogenix is an agriculture biotech company that develops
disruptive new products based on Chromosome Editing. By unlocking
the natural genetic diversity of crops, Meiogenix expands the
biodiversity that can be used by farmers to address global climate,
sustainability and food challenges. Founded from technologies
invented at prominent research institutes in France, Meiogenix
Inc., is headquartered at Cornell University’s Center for Life
Sciences Ventures. For more information, visit
https://meiogenix.com
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Maya Villanueva maya@vuturo.com 1-802-829-0192