RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., June 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Liquidia Technologies Inc. announced today that they have named Todd M. Pope as their Chief Executive Officer while securing a $6 million Series A round of funding led by the Wakefield Group.
“We’ve been aggressively looking for just the right executive to lead the company and are thrilled to have Todd join us as he brings a unique blend of leadership skills and business background,” said Joseph M. DeSimone, PhD., William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University and founder of Liquidia Technologies. “Todd brings 20 years of experience--working with Fortune 250 medical device companies, a specialty pharmaceutical company, a Fortune-500 consumer goods manufacturer, and two technology start-ups.”
Before joining Liquidia Technologies, Pope had roles of increasing executive responsibilities in sales and marketing at Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific, rising to vice president of Global Sales and Marketing at the Neurovascular Division of Boston Scientific. Pope also spent three years at Newell Rubbermaid where he became a president at the company’s American Tool Division. Earlier in his career, he led business development initiatives at Duramed Pharmaceuticals and internet incubator, Divine Interventures.
“I am thrilled to be joining the Liquidia team,” said Pope. “The combination of the founders, the truly breakthrough technology, and the size of the addressable markets makes this an extremely unique opportunity.”
“The diverse prospects of our material platform, Fluorocur(TM), require a CEO with a wide variety of experiences in our targeted markets. Todd’s unquestioned success in technology, manufacturing, and the life science arena is an ideal fit for our applications,” says W. Lowry Caudill, Ph.D., founder and President of Magellan Laboratories and Chairman of the Board at Liquidia Technologies.
Concurrently, the company also announced that it secured $6 million in a round led by the Wakefield Group with additional funding from Firelake Capital Management, Siemens, and private investors, W. Lowry Caudill, Ph.D., Alfred Childers, Ph.D. and William Starling.
“We were extremely pleased to lead this round,” said Steve Nelson, Partner and Managing Director at the Wakefield Group. “Liquidia Technologies has a rare combination of breakthrough and industry-changing technologies, multiple nascent and fast-growing markets, and very strong and experienced management. The addition of Todd as the CEO provides the critical foundation needed to accelerate the company to tremendous heights.”
The additional funding will be used to make critical hires, build out vital manufacturing capabilities for the breakthrough particle molding technology for material science and nanomedicine applications, and to scale up the capacity for large scale Fluorocur production.
Pope will be relocating from the San Francisco area to Research Triangle Park.
About Liquidia Technologies: (www.liquidia.com)
Located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Liquidia Technologies develops and markets innovative fluoropolymer materials for high-value industrial applications in the electronics, life science, and chemical industries. Liquidia Technologies offers solutions in microfluidics and imprint lithography applications due to the beneficial qualities of its innovative material platform, Fluorocur, including solvent resistance, low surface energy, and elastomeric properties. Liquidia Technologies also brings precision, uniformity, and mass production techniques associated with the engineering of devices found in the microelectronics industry to the nanomedicine field for the fabrication and delivery of therapeutic, detection, and imaging agents for the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases.
Source: Liquidia Technologies Inc.
