Edinburgh, Scotland, 24 October 2022 – Green Bioactives Ltd (‘GBL’), a company pioneering the discovery, development and sustainable production of high-value plant natural products, announces that David McElroy PhD, currently Non-executive Director of the company, has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Dr McElroy is an experienced biotech leader, and prior to joining Green Bioactives was co-founder of agbio start-ups Verdia and NovaSynthetix, as well as natural gas-to-feed company Calysta. He was also instrumental in helping launch computation-based protein design company Arzeda and has held roles as President of agbiotech SME Targeted Growth, Senior Director of Business Development at DuPont Food & Ag., VP of Business Development at Maxygen/Verdia and Senior Scientist at DeKalb Genetics/Monsanto.
Dr McElroy obtained a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology from Cornell University where he was a Fulbright Scholar and NATO Overseas Fellow, as well as a BSc (Hons) in Plant Science from University of Aberdeen. He is an inventor on 17 patent families.
David replaces current CEO and Founder of Green Bioactives Professor Gary Loake, who will become Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of the company and retain his position as Chair of the Board of Directors.
Professor Gary Loake, Founder, Chair and CSO of Green Bioactives, said:
“With his extensive experience in leading and building biotech and agbio companies, as well as his expertise in plant science, David is the perfect person to lead Green Bioactives as the company prepares for its next stages of growth. We are looking forward to launching our upcoming financing round and continuing to build our capabilities for the production of plant-derived natural products in an environmentally sustainable and commercially viable manner.”
David McElroy, CEO of Green Bioactives, added:
“I’m excited to be taking on this position at a time when the need to provide more sustainable access to valuable plant bioactives is more critical than ever. Green Bioactives’ platform gives us the potential to become the world’s leading supplier of safe, natural and sustainably-sourced plant-derived products, with strong commercial potential across a range of industries, and we are in a great position to begin realising that vision.”
About Green Bioactives
Green Bioactives ("GBL”) is a world leader in the commercial utilisation of plant vascular stem cells, which has allowed it to create a reliable and economically attractive platform for the sustainable biomanufacturing of plant biomolecules for the cosmetics, pharma, food and agricultural industries.
GBL’s platform provides much improved and sustainable access to the huge, diverse, and valuable library of bioactives generated by the world’s plant population.
GBL is working with several world leading partners to produce high value bioactives that cannot be produced sustainably or economically using other approaches. The company’s capabilities span initial isolation of the bioactive producing plant cells through to the supply of the final purified product.
GBL’s knowledge of plant vascular stem cells also provides the opportunity for the company to develop novel approaches that address the global need for sustainable, more efficient food production.
GBL was founded in 2020 and is currently based at the Roslin Innovation Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland.
