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Illumina Appoints Mark Lewis Senior Vice President of Development

^{Published on 2008-12-15 05:04:20 - Market Wire}
 

SAN DIEGO--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) today appointed Mark Lewis as Senior Vice President of Development. In this newly created role, Mark is responsible for overseeing Illumina's global product development efforts and will report to Joel McComb, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Illumina's Life Sciences Business.

Mark joins Illumina from Becton Dickinson Biosciences where he held numerous executive, business development, and general management positions, including his most recent position as Vice President of Special Order Research Products. In this role, Mark managed the development of customized flow cytometers, evaluated multiplex clinical platforms, managed bioimaging and reagent products, and led integration and divestiture initiatives. Prior to Becton Dickinson, Mark was President of Aeomecia where he led research initiatives and commercial release of genomic technologies for gene discovery, gene characterization, and disease profiling. From 1992 to 2002, Mark held various technical, commercial, and management positions at Molecular Dynamics, including Vice President of Sequencing Technology. In that capacity, he led research and development efforts in DNA sequencing and Genotyping. Mark earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from the University of California, San Diego.

"Mark brings to Illumina more than 15 years of experience in managing product development and commercialization efforts in the life sciences market," said Joel McComb. "His career experience in sequencing and genomics technologies will help us further shape and drive our development strategies."

About Mr. Lewis' Compensation

The Company granted an option to purchase 200,000 shares of Illumina's common stock to Mr. Lewis as part of his inducement to join the company. The option was granted by the Company's Compensation Committee pursuant to NASDAQ Marketplace Rule 4350(i)(1)(A)(iv) and under Illumina's New Hire Stock and Incentive Plan, which was approved by Illumina's Board of Directors on January 29, 2008. This option has the following terms: an exercise price equal to the closing fair market value of Illumina's common stock on the grant date, a ten-year term, and vesting over four years with 25 percent of the option vesting one year from the grant date and 1/48th of the option vesting monthly thereafter. The grant date for this option is December 15, 2008.

About Illumina

Illumina ([ www.illumina.com ]) is a leading developer, manufacturer, and marketer of next-generation life-science tools and integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function. Using our proprietary technologies, we provide a comprehensive line of products and services that currently serve the sequencing, genotyping, and gene expression markets, and we expect to enter the market for molecular diagnostics. Our customers include leading genomic research centers, pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, clinical research organizations, and biotechnology companies. Our tools provide researchers around the world with the performance, throughput, cost effectiveness, and flexibility necessary to perform the billions of genetic tests needed to extract valuable medical information from advances in genomics and proteomics. We believe this information will enable researchers to correlate genetic variation and biological function, which will enhance drug discovery and clinical research, allow diseases to be detected earlier, and permit better choices of drugs for individual patients.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: this release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements are Illumina's ability (i) to develop and commercialize further our BeadArray™, VeraCode®, and Solexa® technologies and to deploy new sequencing, gene expression, and genotyping products and applications for our technology platforms, (ii) to manufacture robust instrumentation and reagents technology, together with other factors detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including our recent filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q or in information disclosed in public conference calls, the date and time of which are released beforehand. We disclaim any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements beyond the date of this release.