NATICK, Mass. — Pillar Biosciences has appointed Todd Christian and Yann Echelard, Ph.D., to its Board of Directors following the company’s latest strategic financing round.
The financing, which closed July 31, will support Pillar’s next-generation sequencing automation strategies and advance development and commercialization of its in vitro diagnostic products.
“We are pleased to welcome Todd and Yann to the Pillar Board,” said Gang Song, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Pillar Biosciences. “Both bring deep experience across the life sciences and diagnostics industries, and their perspectives will be valuable as we advance our current programs, scale the business and biopharma CDx partnerships and expand access to NGS-based cancer testing worldwide.”
Christian is Senior Vice President, Services, Arrays and Genomics Access at Illumina, where he oversees growth initiatives across services, arrays, laboratory services, proteomics and clinical businesses.
He has more than 25 years of life sciences industry experience spanning corporate strategy, commercialization, business transformation and strategic partnerships. Pillar said his experience expanding access to genomic technologies will support the company as it grows its in vitro diagnostics portfolio and biopharmaceutical collaborations.
Christian holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Hamilton College.
Echelard is a Partner at ORI Capital and has more than 30 years of experience in biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals, including research, clinical development, manufacturing, corporate development and commercial management.
He previously served as an Operating Partner at Flagship Pioneering, where he was founding President of several portfolio companies, including Ring Therapeutics, Cellarity, Laronde, now Sail Biomedicines, ProFound Therapeutics and Ampersand Biomedicines.
Before joining Flagship, Echelard was President and CEO of rEVO Biologics, the successor to Genzyme Transgenics.
He currently serves as a director of TG Therapeutics and an advisor to the Gene and Cell Therapy Institute at Mass General Brigham.
Echelard received his Ph.D. from Université de Montréal and completed postdoctoral research at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology and Harvard University.
