Roche appoints 454 Life Sciences president

Roche has announced that Dr Thomas Schinecker is to be appointed as president and lifecycle leader for sequencing at its 454 Life Sciences division.

Dr Schinecker, the current diagnostics general manager for the company's Swedish operations, will take up his new role on August 1st 2011 and will report to head of applied science Robert Yates.

He has been with Roche for more than eight years in a variety of key management positions and will utilise his organisational and operating skills to help develop 454 Life Sciences' pyrosequencing offering.

Mr Yates said Dr Schinecker's background in the oncology and diagnostics field make him well suited to the new role.

"We are very excited to announce Dr Thomas Schinecker as new president of 454 Life Sciences and look forward to expanding Roche's sequencing position as a leading genomics solution provider," he added.

Last month, the business unit launched the GS FLX Plus System, a new instrument capable of generating extra-long sequencing reads.