Yield10 Bioscience Announces Two New Hires as Camelina Business Plan Advances
June 29 2021 - 8:30AM
Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. (Nasdaq:YTEN), an agricultural bioscience
company, today announced two new hires. Tichafa Munyikwa, Ph.D. has
been appointed Director of Regulatory Affairs. In this new role,
Dr. Munyikwa will be responsible for developing and executing
regulatory strategy for Yield10’s performance and content traits
deployed in Camelina. In addition, Nicholas Renegar, Ph.D. has been
appointed Director, Business Analytics and Operations. In this new
role, Dr. Renegar will be responsible for business analytics and
project management as well as supporting Yield10’s business
development, supply chain development, and seed operations
activities.
“We are delighted to have Tichafa join the Yield10 team as we
are scaling up seed production and intensifying our efforts to
develop and commercialize performance traits as well as novel
traits to produce nutritional oils, meal and PHA bioplastics on our
Camelina platform,” said Oliver Peoples, Ph.D., President and Chief
Executive Officer of Yield10. “Tichafa’s experience in major
agricultural companies as well as with startups provides him with a
unique perspective on developing new crops and products for the
agricultural sector. We are confident he will make important
contributions and provide our team with invaluable strategic
insights and guidance on achieving regulatory approval to enable
commercialization of our agbiotech crops and products.”
“Nick brings to this role a strong background in food safety and
global supply chain analytics, areas we will be focused on as we
advance Yield10’s Camelina business plan,” said Dr. Peoples. “We
are delighted to welcome Nick to Yield10 and look forward to his
contributions as he will serve as an important asset to the team as
we expand our seed scale up across Canada, the U.S. and South
America and as we intensify our commercial and business development
activities.”
Dr. Munyikwa possesses 25 years’ experience working in the
agriculture sector in a career spanning crop research and
development, global regulatory affairs and management as well as
successfully obtaining regulatory approval for several genetically
modified crops. From 2018 to 2021, he was Vice President, Global
Regulatory Affairs for Trait Biosciences and Pebble Labs. From 2008
to 2018, Dr. Munyikwa held various positions at Syngenta Company in
regulatory affairs and trait R&D, most recently as Global
Regulatory Affairs Lead for New Technologies and Early Phase
Research Projects (2014-2018) and Chair, Plant Breeding Innovations
Team, Genome Editing (2013 to 2018). From 1998 to 2007, Dr.
Munyikwa was at Monsanto Company (now Bayer) where he joined as a
post-doc and became a Senior Research Scientist in the
Biotechnology Program in 1999. At Monsanto he was named an inventor
on six issued patents and focused on experimental and
commercialization strategies for RNAi (gene silencing) technology
and mechanisms of plant disease resistance.
In his professional experience, Dr. Munyikwa has been a board
member for the International Enzyme Technical Association, North
Carolina State University Genetic Engineering & Society
Institute, and the Association of African Agricultural
Professionals in Diaspora (AAAPD). Dr. Munyikwa earned a Ph.D. at
Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He earned an M.S. in
Biotechnology - Molecular Biology, Fermentation Technology and a
B.S. in Biological Sciences Microbiology, Parasitology,
Invertebrate Zoology from the University of Zimbabwe.
Dr. Renegar recently earned a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA, where he was
advised by Professor Retsef Levi. While pursuing his Ph.D., Dr.
Renegar was a member of MIT’s Operations Research Center, and MIT’s
Food Supply Chain Analytics and Sensing (FSAS) Initiative. He has
conducted and published research in food safety, including supply
chain analytics, big data and optimization, with a focus on
international supply chains and China. His Doctoral Thesis is
entitled “Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning for the
Risk-Based Management of Agricultural Supply Chains”. Dr. Renegar
has also worked on auction theory and online algorithms, including
a research internship at Google, Inc. focused on mechanism design
for search ads. Prior to MIT, from 2010 to 2015, Dr. Renegar worked
as a Healthcare Consulting Actuarial Analyst at Milliman, Inc.
where he utilized predictive analytics to help healthcare
organizations plan for the future. Dr. Renegar earned a B.A. in
Mathematics and a B.S. in Operations Research at Cornell
University.
About Yield10 Bioscience
Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. is an agricultural bioscience company
that is using its differentiated trait gene discovery platform, the
“Trait Factory”, to develop improved Camelina varieties to produce
proprietary seed products, and to discover high value genetic
traits for the agriculture and food industries. Our goals are to
efficiently establish a high value seed products business based on
developing superior varieties of Camelina to produce feedstock
oils, nutritional oils, and PHA bioplastics, and to license our
yield traits to major seed companies for commercialization in major
row crops, including corn, soybean and canola. Yield10 is
headquartered in Woburn, MA and has an Oilseeds Center of
Excellence in Saskatoon, Canada.
For more information about the company, please visit
www.yield10bio.com, or follow the Company on Twitter, Facebook and
LinkedIn.
(YTEN-G)
Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are
made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the
Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The forward-looking
statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future
performance. Investors are cautioned that statements in this press
release which are not strictly historical, including, without
limitation, that Dr. Munyikwa will make important contributions and
provide Yield10 with invaluable strategic insights and guidance on
achieving regulatory approval to enable commercialization of the
Company’s agbiotech crops and products, and that Dr. Renegar will
serve as an important asset to Yield10 as the Company expands its
seed scale up across Canada, the U.S. and South America and as the
Company intensifies its commercial and business development
activities, constitute forward-looking statements. Such
forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially
from those anticipated, including the risks and uncertainties
detailed in Yield10 Bioscience's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. Yield10 assumes no obligation to update any
forward-looking information contained in this press release or with
respect to the matters described herein.
Contacts: Yield10 Bioscience:Lynne H. Brum,
(617) 682-4693, LBrum@yield10bio.com
Investor Relations: Bret Shapiro, (561) 479-8566,
brets@coreir.comManaging Director, CORE IR
Media Inquiries: Eric Fischgrund, eric@fischtankpr.com FischTank
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