ARCH Venture Partners Names Steve Gillis, Co-Founder of Immunex and
Corixa, as Venture Partner
Tuesday August 2, 12:56 pm ET


SEATTLE, Aug. 2 ARCH Venture Partners announced today that Dr.
Steven Gillis, Ph.D., co-founder of Immunex and Corixa Corporations,
has joined the firm as a Venture Partner based out of its Seattle
office.

Dr. Gillis will focus on assisting in the development and growth of
ARCH's biotechnology portfolio companies nationwide and will assume
Board roles in a number of those companies. He will also be active
in the evaluation of new life science technologies.

Dr. Gillis is a pioneer within the biotechnology industry and one of
its most respected executives, serving as Director of Research and
Development, Chief Scientific Officer, and eventually Chairman and
CEO of Immunex Corp., which he co-founded in 1981, and which was
acquired by Amgen in December 2001. Dr. Gillis also co-founded
Corixa Corp. in 1994 where he served as Chairman and CEO. Corixa was
acquired by GlaxoSmithKline in July 2005.

Robert Nelsen, Managing Director and co-founder of ARCH, said, "Dr.
Gillis will bring to ARCH extensive experience in creating and
managing biotech companies as well as rapidly developing products
from fundamental research. He is that rare combination of successful
entrepreneur and scientist, which fits well with ARCH's science-
driven approach to venture capital investment. We are delighted to
have someone of his caliber and experience join the ARCH team."

Dr. Gillis commented, "I look forward to helping ARCH and their
portfolio companies. I hope that lessons I have learned in the past
25 years in the industry will be of use, not only to existing
organizations, but to companies that may be put together in the next
several years."

An original recruit to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in
Seattle, Dr. Gillis maintained an academic laboratory focused on
immune regulation. He received his B.A. from Williams College and
his Ph.D. from Dartmouth College.

About ARCH Venture Partners

ARCH Venture Partners focuses on creating early stage technology
companies in the life, physical and information sciences, which
emanate from universities, national laboratories and corporate
research labs. With over $1 billion under management, ARCH has
invested in the earliest rounds of more than 120 companies over a 20
year history. Early stage biotechnology investments include Caliper
Life Sciences, Adolor, Illumina, deCode Genetics, Aviron (acquired
by MedImmune), Array BioPharma, XenoPort, GenVec, Alnylam
Pharmaceuticals, Ikaria, NeurogesX, R2 Technology, and Trubion
Pharmaceuticals, among others. ARCH was also a seed investor in
companies such as New Era of Networks (acquired by Sybase), Nanosys,
Impinj, and MicroOptical Devices (acquired by Emcore).

www.archventure.com




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Source: ARCH Venture Partners


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