Hiro Masumoto
CEO, President and Founder
Mr. Masumoto has been a business leader and entrepreneur for over 15 years in both the United States and Japan. In May of 2000, Mr. Masumoto founded B-Bridge (BBI) with the vision of acting as a bridge to facilitate the exchange and commercialization of novel biotechnology between North America and Japan. After success in this area he expanded the company's business scope to world-wide markets starting with a focus on Europe and Asia.
Today, with his vision, in addition to distribution, BBI not only develops novel in-house products and services, but has also created programs that foster the development of new technologies stemming from visionary startup companies. In this capacity Mr. Masumuto has co-founded Avocel Corporation (an siRNA technology company now acquired by Benitec) in the USA and Strex Inc. (a company pioneering the area of cellular biophysical forces) in Japan. Formerly as International Sales Director for Clontech Laboratories he successfully oversaw Clontech's network of international distributors and subsidiaries, and set up Clontech's Japanese subsidiary in Tokyo. Before Clontech, he spent 9 years at Toyobo, Ltd., a major Japanese manufacturer, focusing on international marketing and business development.
Through his strong network of contacts, experience in starting new ventures, an understanding of the international marketplace, and success in commercializing new technology, Mr. Masumoto has demonstrated vision, leadership, competence, and success in a global business environment overcoming the challenges and obstacles of the competitive and fast-moving world of biotechnology. Mr. Masumoto holds bachelors degrees in both accounting and economics from Doshisha University in Kyoto Japan.
Paul Diehl, Ph.D.
Director, Commercial Operations
Dr. Diehl joined BBI in October 2003 and has focused on increasing BBI's market share worldwide. He plays a key role in the expansion of the company's product offerings and catalyzing the expansion of the sales of its products into new market segments. Dr. Diehl has over 10 years of experience in marketing and sales of reagents and instrumentation for life-science research, as well as 10 years of training and research in biochemistry and molecular biology.
Prior to joining BBI, he held product marketing management positions at Arcturus Engineering and Agilent Laboratories. He was instrumental in the successful launch of the PixCell IIe and AutoPix Laser Capture Microdissection Systems while with Arcturus Engineering, and oversaw the launch of their first commercially available micro-array systems at Agilent Laboratories. Earlier positions included Director of Marketing and US Operations for the San Diego-area subsidiary of Display Systems Biotech, and Product Manager for molecular and cell biology products at Clontech Laboratories. Dr. Diehl received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Washington State University and a bachelor of science in Biology from LaSalle University in Philadelphia.
Takayuki Mizutani, M.S.
Director, Business Development
Mr. Mizutani joined B-Bridge in October 2000, shortly after the company's inception. In addition to overseeing our business development affairs, he is also the key inventor of several of BBI's technologies and original ideas in the area of siRNA and bioinformatics. He has created several of our collaborations with prominent universities and companies worldwide. He was an advisor to Avocel, Inc. in business and technology development strategy during that company's incubation at B-Bridge, until it's acquisition by Benitec in May 2004. Mr. Mizutani is the author of The Handbook for RNAi Experiments, a very popular research tool in Japan. He has also co-authored several scientific publications. He received his M.S. in Biochemistry from California State University, Long Beach with honors and was on the National Dean's List twice and also holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from Ohio State University.
Sayumi Shibamoto, Ph.D.
Manager, Research and Development
Dr. Shibamoto oversees our new technology R&D producing research tools and custom services. She brings to B-Bridge 15 years of research experience that spans work in both academia and industry to develop new products supporting basic research and drug discovery. Previous to B-Bridge, Dr. Shibamoto was a post-doctoral fellow at Genentech, Inc. and a visiting scholar at Stanford University where she conducted work in cancer cell biology. In Japan, she worked at Setsunan University in Osaka, where she specialized in the area of signal transduction pathways and cell adhesion in cancer. Dr. Shibamoto received her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biochemistry from Kyoto University.
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