Green Bioactives has promoted non-executive director David McElroy to the position of chief executive.
Prior to joining the business he was co-founder of start-ups Verdia, NovaSynthetix and Calysta, while also being instrumental in launching Arzeda.
McElroy was also previously president of biotech and senior director of business development at DuPont, vice president of business development at Maxygen/Verdia and senior scientist at DeKalb Genetics/Monsanto.
He replaces current chief executive and founder Gary Loake, who will become chief scientific officer of the company, while also retaining his position as acting chair of the board.
Loake said: “With his extensive experience in leading and building biotech and agbio companies, as well as his expertise in plant science, David is the perfect person to lead Green Bioactives as the company prepares for its next stages of growth.
“We are looking forward to launching our upcoming financing round and continuing to build our capabilities for the production of plant-derived natural products in an environmentally sustainable and commercially viable manner.”
McElroy added: “I’m excited to be taking on this position at a time when the need to provide more sustainable access to valuable plant bioactives is more critical than ever.
“Green Bioactives’ platform gives us the potential to become the world’s leading supplier of safe, natural and sustainably-sourced plant-derived products, with strong commercial potential across a range of industries, and we are in a great position to begin realising that vision.”
The company was founded in 2020 and is currently based at the Roslin Innovation Centre just outside of Edinburgh.
It is pioneering the discovery, development and production of plant vascular stem cells, creating a platform for the sustainable bio-manufacturing of plant biomolecules for the cosmetics, pharma, food and agricultural industries.
Green Bioactives is working with several partners to produce high value bioactives that cannot be produced sustainably or economically using other approaches.
McElroy obtained a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology from Cornell University where he was a Fulbright Scholar and NATO Overseas Fellow, as well as a BSc in Plant Science from University of Aberdeen. He is an inventor on 17 patent families.
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