SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) today announced that it has appointed Dr. Daniel S. Grosu, M.D., as Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. In this newly created position, Dr. Grosu will play a key role in building Illumina’s diagnostic capabilities through collaborations with regulatory agencies, internal product development teams, and Illumina’s CLIA-certified clinical laboratory.
“Dr. Grosu brings the experience, credentials, and intellectual rigor required to move Illumina’s cutting-edge technology into the clinic,” said Illumina’s Gregory Heath, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Diagnostics. “As Chief Medical Officer, he will assist in aggressively driving our business towards this enormous new market opportunity.”
“During the next few years, we will see tremendous advances in medicine driven by technological breakthroughs in genomics and related systems biology areas,” said Dr. Grosu. “These developments will bring us fully into the long-awaited era of personalized medicine, and Illumina is ideally positioned to be both a key enabler and a key player in this historic process. I am delighted to join Illumina at such an exciting time for our industry.”
Prior to joining Illumina, Dr. Grosu was Group Director, Clinical Science, Clinical and Medical Affairs at Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics. He was also previously the Director and Global Clinical Leader, Global Clinical Development, Diagnostic Imaging at Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, Dr. Grosu was at Siemens Medical Solutions. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., a medical degree from Missouri’s Saint Louis University, and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Oxford.
About Dr. Grosu’s Compensation
Illumina will grant an option to purchase 60,000 shares of Illumina's common stock and 6,700 restricted stock units (RSUs) to Dr. Grosu as part of his inducement to join the company. An RSU represents a conditional right to receive one share of our common stock at a specified future date. The options and RSUs were approved by Illumina's compensation committee pursuant to NASDAQ Marketplace Rule 5635(c)(4) and will be granted under Illumina's New Hire Stock and Incentive Plan, which was approved by Illumina's Board of Directors on January 29, 2008. The option will have 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 RSUs will vest over four years with 25 percent of the RSUs vesting on each of the first four anniversaries of the grant date. The grant date for the option and RSUs to Dr. Grosu will be his start date with Illumina, which is expected to be October 31, 2011.
About Illumina
Illumina (http://www.illumina.com) is a leading developer, manufacturer, and marketer of life science tools and integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and function. We provide innovative sequencing and array-based solutions for genotyping, copy number variation analysis, methylation studies, gene expression profiling, and low-multiplex analysis of DNA, RNA, and protein. We also provide tools and services that are fueling advances in consumer genomics and diagnostics. Our technology and products accelerate genetic analysis research and its application, paving the way for molecular medicine and ultimately transforming healthcare.