febit Management Team

As Chief Executive Officer, Cord F. Staehler is responsible for the strategic development of febit group. Within this position and his role as President of febit biomed gmbh, Mr. Staehler leads febit’s management team and directly heads corporate development, human resources and investor relations. In his function as President of febit inc., the group’s US Operations, he heads the US Management and focuses on market development.

In 1998, Mr. Staehler co-founded febit in Germany as the company’s CTO.  He was later appointed COO, and he became the febit group’s President & CEO in 2001 and restructured febit in 2005.
Mr. Staehler has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. He brings to febit several years of experience from scientific work as a project leader at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Automation. He has worked as developer and consultant in the field of analytical systems for the pharmaceutical, biotechnological and diagnostic industry, living and working in Germany, Japan and the United States.
He received several awards for his work and has been honored by a guest lecture at the Danube University Krems.

As COO Heinz Blunier is responsible for instrument production, the technical service, production of Geniom biochips, the Geniom biochip farm as well as the complete supply chain. He joined the company in January 2008 taking over the responsibility from Dr. M. Scheffler on April 1st. He has more than 30 years of experience in medical and analytical instrumentation in different positions.

Heinz Blunier graduated in mechanical engineering in 1972. He entered Georg Fischer / Switzerland as a project- and turnaround manager, was Head of Engineering Department at Inventa / Switzerland from 1976 to 1979 before he became CEO of Tegimenta AG, a subsidiary of Hoffmann La-Roche. At Boehringer Mannheim (1983 – 1992) he was Vice President and Plant Manager in Mannheim (R&D, Production, Supply Chain for Diagnostic Products) and was responsible for “On-the-spot-Diagnostics” as head of that business unit.

After his return to Switzerland he was a management and sales trainer for three years before he decided to be an independent management consultant. In this position he led numerous turn-around projects in Switzerland, Germany and UK mainly in the field of scientific instrumentation and usually acting as an interim manager. Before he joined febit he has been interim COO of a German VC financed company in the field of innovative medical system for three years.

As Chief Scientific Officer of febit holding gmbh, Peer F. Staehler is responsible for market intelligence, strategic product planning and public relations. He links febit group with key opinion leaders in the industry. In his role as Vice President Marketing of febit biomed gmbh, he heads the operative marketing and product management team. As General Manager of febit synbio gmbh, Mr. Staehler leads the operational business in the exciting and fast growing field of Synthetic Biology.

In 1998, Mr. Staehler co-invented the Geniom Technology, co-founded febit and acted as its Chief Scientific Officer. After holding different key R&D Management roles, in 2005 he began the role of VP of Marketing while still taking care of the global scientific strategy as CSO. Since the founding of febit synbio Peer Stähler serves as managing director and leads febit’s project of developing a novel high throughput Gene Synthesis Technology.

Mr. Staehler has a master’s degree in molecular biology and genetics from the University of Konstanz. Mr. Staehler is an expert in biochip technology and benefits from his many years of experience as an entrepreneur in the biotechnology industry. Mr. Staehler co-founded the International Association for Synthetic Biology (IASB) and is currently member of the board.

Jochen Kohlhaas joined febit as Chief Financial Officer in 2005 and holds this position within all companies of the febit group, including the US Operations febit, inc.

Mr. Kohlhaas obtained a master’s degree in economics, and started his career as a consultant and assistant professor. He has extensive experience consulting for companies in various positions from controlling to CFO. Before joining febit, Mr. Kohlhaas held the position of CFO at the venture capital firm TechnoStart, Ludwigsburg (Germany), where he still acts as a financial consultant.

As the groups CTO Ramon Güimil García strategically directs all platform efforts and as Vice President Research & Development he oversees all R&D at febit biomed gmbh, including applications, chemistry & processes, instrument design, optics & engineering, system control software and electronics development. He joined febit in October 1999 and stayed with the company through the restructuring in 2005 as a co-founder.

Dr. Güimil García graduated in 1986 from the Moscow State University Lomonosow with a master’s degree in organic chemistry. During his Ph.D. dissertation he developed patented procedures for unique monomers and oligonucleotide synthesis procedures. From 1986 to 1990, he worked as research scientist at the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center in Havana, Cuba. In 1990, Dr. Güimil García joined the Nucleic Acid Synthesis Group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). During this time, he won a deep knowledge in surface coating, nucleoside & oligonucleotide synthesis and unmodified & modified DNA- and RNA-Chemistries. In 1995, Dr. Güimil García was appointed as EMBL Staff Scientist. His work resulted in numerous scientific publications and patents.

Matthias Scheffler serves as Vice President Sales and is responsible for Europe, Asia and “Rest of World”. He coordinates all sales activities for febit products and services. He offers strong knowledge of febit’s products and all manufacturing processes from his former position as the group’s Vice President of Operations, where he was responsible for instrument manufacturing, production of Geniom Biochips and related consumables as well as the complete supply chain. He joined febit in May 1999 and stayed with the company through the restructuring in 2005 as a co-founder. Dr. Scheffler joined febit as Development Scientist responsible for BioChip Development, later being appointed as Team Manager, before transitioning into Operations and joining the Senior Management in 2006.

Having successfully completed his studies of Chemistry at the University of Ulm and Freiburg, Dr. Scheffler received his Ph.D. in the field of nucleic acid chemistry at the University of Bochum.

As Vice President Business Development of febit group, Markus Beier’s key responsibility is the protection of febit’s broad intellectual property portfolio of cutting-edge, flexible Biochip Technology by means of registered trademarks and patents. He also orchestrates febit’s grant applications and controls their execution. Together with febit’s CEO and CSO, he drives the company’s growth through targeted partnering efforts.

Dr. Beier joined febit’s R&D department in 2000 as Biochip Expert, adding his broad experience to the team after his position as scientific officer at the renowned Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla (USA) and at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg (Germany). He stayed with the company through the restructuring in 2005 as a co-founder and was promoted as Team Manager, Director and joined febit’s Senior Management Team as Vice President of Application Development in 2006 before he transitioned into his recent role heading febit’s Business Development activities.

Dr. Beier studied Chemistry at the University of Konstanz complemented by a Ph.D. in the field of nucleic acid chemistry. Dr. Beier is a designated specialist in the field of biochips with numerous scientific publications in Science and others, and he holds several patents in microarray technology.

Anthony Caruso joined febit, inc. in April 2007, as Vice President of Informatics & Application Software. His responsibilities include heading febit’s informatics and computational biology algorithm development, guiding febit’s application software development and providing support for febit’s US customer base. Due to his deep knowledge within Bioinformatics, he also leads febit’s Biosecurity efforts, e.g. febit’s partnership with In-Q-Tel.

Prior to joining febit, Mr. Caruso held various positions during his 15+ year professional career, including President and Founder of Source Code Genetics, Inc., an informatics consulting company focusing on decision support, data mining and data management; President and Managing Director of Lion Bioscience Research, Inc., a five year, $100MM collaboration between Bayer Pharmaceuticals and Lion Bioscience, Director II of Informatics and Automation at ALTANA Pharma and Group Leader of Computational Biology at Genome Therapeutics. Anthony transitioned from the wet laboratory to informatics while at Genetics Institute, where his career started as a molecular biologist in the department of Hematopoiesis.

In the position as Vice President Technology Commercialization, Jack Leonard applies 15 years of product development experience in the life sciences to help accelerate the commercialization of febit’s Geniom Platform and applications. Dr. Leonard also heads-up the febit Genomic Services Group in the U.S., which offers the HybSelect™ sequence capture service for DNA re-sequencing, as well as a wide range of microRNA (miRNA) and gene expression profiling services.

Prior to joining febit, Dr. Leonard was Director of Genomics and Molecular Biology at Millipore; R&D Director at U.S. Genomics; and most recently, Director of Process Development at Codon Devices, where he led the team that integrated automation, microfluidics, and molecular biology methods to build a high production DNA fabrication platform.

Dr. Leonard received his Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Connecticut, and completed his post-doctoral research at New England Biolabs.

As febit inc.’s Vice President Operations (VP US Operations) Mr. Peter LaCrosse is responsible for all infrastructure and administrative topics such as finance & controlling, IT, infrastructure and safety at the Lexington site with special focus on human resources. His second responsibility is to manage all customer complaints and to orchestrate technical service & maintenance for the Americas. He joined the febit team in December 2006 and most recently served as Director of US Operations. Mr. LaCrosse brings 10 years of high level Operations and 15 years of military experience to febit.

As a decorated combat AH-64 (Apache) Helicopter Pilot and Mission Planner – having flown in Central America, South America, and Desert Storm. Additionally, Mr. LaCrosse served as Assistant Operations Officer 4th Battalion 229th Aviation Regiment, Safety Officer and Unit Trainer 6/6 Cavalry Regiment, He began his military service as a Marine, conducting electronics and communication activities. Awards include (2) Air Medals with “V” for valor, (2) Army Commendation Medal & Master Aviator Designation.

In 2002 he moved directly into the Life Sciences field as VP of Operations at Saoirse Corporation. Under his direction he brought the company from the ground up with organization of complete lab facilities including Chemistry Department, Material Science Department, Biology Department, Animal Facility and High Intensity Focused Ultrasound Lab. Mr. LaCrosse holds a Bachelors of Science degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.