Zageno Surpasses its Growth Targets in First Half of 2018; Adds Resources and Structures to Accelerate Growth for the Rest of the Year

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. USA and BERLIN, Germany, June 27, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Zageno Inc., an online biotech marketplace, has quadrupled sales in the first half of 2018, exceeding its planned growth trajectory for the year. Chief Executive Officer David Pumberger, Ph.D., attributing success to date to the company's customer-centric culture, announces plans to accelerate growth in the second half of the year. These include: an expanded leadership team comprising key hires in critical positions, bolstered processes and operations so Zageno can extend its high level of responsiveness to an ever-growing list of customer and vendor partners, and a headquarter move to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"It may sound trite, but we really care about our customers, and it shows," said Pumberger. "Ask them what made them try Zageno for the very first time and there's a good chance they can't tell you: 'Hmm.I saw magnets with the Zageno name everywhere? I heard about it from a friend? To tell you the truth, I can't remember.'

"But if you ask about their experience, their answer is some variation of this: 'I love Zageno's people. I use the chat function or talk to a real person on the phone. And even when I'm not particularly happy because something's not going my way - they work hard to find a quick resolution. It's always a pleasant interaction - and that's so unusual today.'"

Pumberger added, "It may seem counterintuitive for what's, in theory, a 'virtual' company, but one of the founding principles behind Zageno is that close interpersonal connection we develop with our customers to help them succeed. We are committed to building this as we grow, which is why we decided to move our headquarters to the biotech hub of Cambridge - home to many of our key stakeholders: major U.S. academic research institutions, pharma and biotech companies and vendors, and life-science startups.

"It's why we've been adding experienced scientists across the spectrum of research to our customer-service group, and why we are expanding our leadership team." The founders' hiring goal, according to Pumberger: bring in individuals with the experience, skills, and demonstrated track record the company needs so it can delight existing and new customers and vendor partners with even better product offerings and services - while positioning Zageno for accelerated growth and the company's next stage of development.

Johann du Toit and Rafael Casiano will provide the backbone of the company's enhanced administrative and commercial structure as vice presidents of finance and U.S. sales, respectively.

With increased revenues, expanded vendor contracts, and plans for securing additional capital in the company's future, Zageno is formalizing key aspects of its operations. Johann du Toit will be joining Zageno August 1st, bringing a broad range of global finance experience to his charge of building the company's finance function with a modernized approach to facilitating international payment flows, cost control, and more transparency to internal and external stakeholders. He has well-rounded leadership experience, managing projects at Ernst & Young, KPMG, and IKB Deutsche Industriebank, where his mastery of financial modeling proved to be indispensable for his clients' strategy decisions. Most recently, du Toit has taken on interim CFO roles to help several small to medium enterprises to raise funds and streamline their finance functions, among other critical tasks for companies on a rapid growth trajectory. He is a chartered accountant [CA/(SA)], and holds an executive master's in business administration (EMBA) from IE Business School, specializing in entrepreneurship, and a bachelor's degree in finance, accounting, tax, and auditing from the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

Zageno will develop repeatable sales processes under the leadership of Rafael Casiano, who joined Zageno in May. He began his career in the laboratory as a microbiologist at the Florida Department of Agriculture and subsequently led the QC lab for Pall Corporation, where he transitioned to a key account manager position and found his passion in sales and business development. For more than 20 years, Casiano approached his commercial roles successfully as a tenacious customer advocate, amassing deep relationships throughout pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and academic markets. As a global commercial leader at GE Healthcare, he developed commercial processes, combining sales and project-management disciplines to help advance cancer biomarker discovery. He holds a bachelor's degree in microbiology from the University of South Florida.

Chief Revenue Officer Florian Wegener, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., commented, "I'm excited to bring in new leadership who will enhance our company culture. We want customers to be able to remember their first personal interaction with Zageno and to tell their colleagues that we were right beside them when we simplified their administrative tasks, integrated into their existing processes, saving them time and money - resolving issues and needs they didn't even know they had."

About Zageno Inc. (www.zageno.com; twitter: @ZAGENOteam)

Founded in 2015, Zageno is eliminating bottlenecks to breakthrough science and research through curated connections linking scientists and their institutions' procurement offices with leading life-science vendors. World-renowned academic and government research facilities, global pharmaceutical companies, and biotechs large and small are already users of our unique online biotech marketplace, currently comprising about five million products. What do we do? 1) We make purchasing transactions more efficient for both buyers and sellers. 2) We help scientists choose the optimal laboratory kits and materials for each unique experiment setup. 3) We provide a valuable, expanded sales channel for our vendor partners. The growing Zageno team of 60 in Cambridge, USA, and Berlin, Germany, includes accessible experts in science, e-commerce, systems integration, and customer support. Our people work directly with customers to enable smarter, faster processes - allowing more time and resources for value-added science and better research results. 

Attachment: Zageno_lifestyle multi-device

CONTACT:

Caroline Grossman, Communications & Public Affairs

Mirepoix LLC

ZAGENO, Inc.

phone (781) 771-5579

e-mail: caroline@mirepoixllc.com