Fargo, North Dakota, May 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pete Leland, a 20-year veteran of the biotechnology industry, has joined Genovac Antibody Discovery, Fargo, N.D., as its vice president of production and characterization.
Genovac is a contract research organization that discovers and develops antibodies for therapeutic, diagnostic and research markets. The company’s core technologies – genetic immunization, advanced hybridoma and single B cell screening – enable rapid antibody discovery against biopharma’s most challenging targets.
With the addition of Leland, Genovac can now provide its clients with robust production and characterization services.
“Pete is an accomplished and recognized leader in biotechnology,” said Genovac CEO Brian Walters. “Genovac is committed to being a ‘one-stop shop,’ providing antibody discovery, production and characterization services. With Pete’s expertise and experience, we’ve been able to hit the ground running in the United States. Genovac is fortunate to have him at the head of a key part of our scientific team.”
Leland leads the group that manufactures and tests antibodies, which Genovac clients use to develop drugs that help fight genetic and infectious diseases like Covid-19, cancer and neurological disorders.
“Genovac is doing cutting-edge work supporting pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies across the world,” Leland said. “It’s very exciting to establish these technologies at the Fargo site while providing scientific career opportunities in the process.”
Prior to joining Genovac, Leland was a principal scientist for downstream process development at Catalent, Madison, Wis. Before that he was a proposal manager at Patheon, a division of Thermos Fisher Scientific, in Princeton, N.J., and the senior manager of technical operations in the Madison, Wis., Protein Division of Fargo-based Aldevron.
Leland holds a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
About Genovac
Since its founding in 1999, Genovac Antibody Discovery has completed more than 3,500 projects, providing antibodies to clients in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia that have been developed into clinical and commercial drugs. Genovac also has completed more than 25 client and internal COVID-19 campaigns and has developed two antibodies that successfully neutralize the United Kingdom, Brazilian and South African mutations. In addition to its headquarters and lab in Fargo, N.D., Genovac operates a second scientific and production facility in Freiburg, Germany.
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