Berkeley Lights Announces Appointment of Lucas S. Vitale as Chief Human Resources Officer

EMERYVILLE, Calif., April 13, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Berkeley Lights, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLI), a leader in digital cell biology, announced the appointment of Lucas Vitale to the newly created role of Chief Human Resources Officer (“CHRO”), effective immediately. Vitale will lead Berkeley Lights' Human Resources function. He will report directly to the Company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr. Siddhartha Kadia. As Berkeley Lights’ newly appointed CEO, Dr. Kadia is focused on the further development of its human capital and talent function to support the Company’s growth opportunities.

Over his 20-year career in the life sciences industry, Vitale has gained extensive expertise across all aspects of Human Resources. Prior to joining Berkeley Lights, Vitale served as senior vice president of Human Resources at Arena Pharmaceuticals, which was recently acquired by Pfizer. In this role, he supported the evolution of the company’s global human resources business partners and talent acquisition functions, as well as talent related efforts for the company throughout its merger negotiations and integration planning. Prior to that, Vitale held a variety of HR roles, including CHRO, during his seven-year tenure at NuVasive, a publicly traded medical device company. As CHRO at NuVasive, he led the global HR strategy for approximately 2,700 employees across 50 countries and implemented the company’s first formal Diversity & Inclusion roadmap. Prior to NuVasive, Vitale spent 10 years at Life Technologies, where he was an integral member of the global HR leadership team and served on the company’s acquisition and integration team where he supported the scaling of the company from several hundred employees to nearly 10,000 by the time it was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2014.

“With two decades of experience in all facets of human resources in the life sciences industry, Lucas is a skilled leader with a talent for building and scaling organizations and high-performance leadership teams,” said Dr. Kadia. “In his new role, Lucas will support the development of our teams, processes and operations by drawing on his passion for people and experience in scaling organizations. As Berkeley Lights continues advancing its strategic priorities, we will also benefit from Lucas’ experience in thoughtfully guiding the cultural evolution necessary to support transformative growth.”

“I am honored to join Berkeley Lights and look forward to supporting the continued growth of the organization,” said Mr. Vitale. “It’s clear that Berkeley Lights has incredible employees who consistently apply their collective talent, time, and expertise to help advance the Company’s mission and deliver for customers. I look forward to working with our talented team to further build on the people and organizational capabilities who will help Berkeley Lights’ advance its strategic priorities.”

About Berkeley Lights

Berkeley Lights is a leading digital cell biology company focused on enabling and accelerating the rapid development and commercialization of biotherapeutics and other cell-based products for our customers. The Berkeley Lights Platform captures deep phenotypic, functional, and genotypic information for thousands of single cells in parallel and can also deliver the live biology customers desire in the form of the best cells. Our platform is a fully integrated, end-to-end solution, comprising proprietary consumables, including our OptoSelect™ chips and reagent kits, advanced automation systems, and application software. We developed the Berkeley Lights Platform to provide the most advanced environment for rapid functional characterization of single cells at scale, the goal of which is to establish an industry standard for our customers throughout their cell-based product value chain.

Berkeley Lights’ Beacon^® and Lightning^® systems Land Culture Station^™ instrument are FOR RESEARCH USE ONLY. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

Forward-Looking Statements

To the extent that statements contained in this press release are not descriptions of historical facts regarding Berkeley Lights or its products, they are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management. Such forward-looking statements involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties that relate to future events, and actual results and product performance could differ significantly from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Berkeley Lights undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties relating to the Company’s growth and continual evolution see the statements in the "Risk Factors" sections, and elsewhere, in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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