Paul Jones, Simon Partridge and Christian Bourne, previously from Illumina and Genomics England, have joined Dante Labs in its new Cambridge, UK office to spearhead its ground-breaking global population genomics offer

CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, May 11, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Dante Labs today announced Paul Jones, Simon Partridge and Christian Bourne have joined the Company’s Executive Team as part of its mission to enable faster, more effective population genomics programmes globally.

“We are excited to welcome Paul, Simon, and Christian to our team,” said Andrea Riposati, Chief Executive Officer of Dante Labs. “We share the vision for innovative solutions to accelerate the adoption of population genomics and precision medicine initiatives by healthcare systems and governments worldwide.”

The trio will drive Dante Labs’ clinical, research, industry engagement and economic development agendas for large-scale national programmes around the world. Jones, Partridge and Bourne were all formerly part of the population genomics team at S&P 500 company Illumina, and were involved in the development and acceleration of Genomics England, now considered the global benchmark programme for population genomics.

Paul Jones joins Dante Labs as Chief Business Officer. Paul brings 30 years of life sciences, technology, and healthcare experience to the organisation. Most recently, he was the Global Head of Population Genomics at Illumina where he led a team that created, developed and actively managed large-scale population genomics programmes across the world. Previously, Paul was CEO of Genomics Enterprises at Genomics England and Leader of Global Life Sciences at Cisco. He has also held senior positions at IMS Health, Novartis, and PwC Consulting.

Simon Partridge joins Dante Labs as VP, Global Head of Business Operations. He was most recently Global Market Development Lead for Population Genomics at Illumina, building upon past experience as Director of Industry Engagement and then Acting CEO of Genomics Enterprises at Genomics England. Prior to that Simon held several senior operational roles with start-ups, consultancies and large corporations across multiple sectors.

Christian Bourne has been appointed as Senior Director, Global Head of Lab Operations after seven years at Illumina, where he was instrumental in creating the highly successful ISO:15189 accredited lab that delivered the 100,000 genomes for the Genomics England programme – going on to utilise this experience with many other programmes around the world. Prior to this, Christian worked in high throughput genomic sequencing and core lab environments at The Centre for Genomic Research, the University of Liverpool, Cancer Research UK, AstraZeneca and DEFRA.

About Dante Labs

Dante Labs is a global genomic data company building and commercialising a new class of transformative health and longevity applications based on whole genome sequencing and AI. Our assets include one of the largest private genome databases with research consent, a proprietary software platform designed to unleash the power of genomic data at scale and proprietary processes which enable an industrial approach to genomic sequencing.

Headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom, with a research laboratory in Wolverhampton, Dante Labs supported the UK Government’s urgent requirement to scale-up a high-capacity, highly automated testing solution for Covid-19, including infected patients as well as those with antibodies. Dante Labs was able to deliver by leveraging existing technology that had been developed for whole genome sequencing.

Giorgio Lodi, [email protected]. +39 0862 191 0671