Dr. David A. Smoller served as CEO of Sage Labs, a Life Science CRO based on Gene Editing technology until acquired By Horizon Discovery ( HZD.L). David continued at Horizon as Chief Business Officer and Board Member until December of 2015. Previous to those roles, Dr. Smoller was the Chief Scientific Officer of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation from February 2011 until August 3, 2012. Dr. Smoller served as the President of Research Biotech Business Unit of Sigma-Aldrich Corp. since July 5, 2007 and served as its Vice President of Research and Development since June 1, 2004.
Dr. Smoller served as President and Chief Executive Officer of ProteoPlex, a seed stage spinout focusing on functional genomics. Dr. Smoller founded ProteoPlex in 2001 and led the St. Louis-based company through its product development and final acquisition by Merck KgA. In 1992, Dr. Smoller founded Genome Systems Inc., in St. Louis, which provided the scientific community with access to genome project-related technologies. Dr. Smoller stayed at the helm of Genome Systems, Inc. until it was acquired in 1996 by the Incyte Corporation, based in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Smoller joined Incyte as Vice President eventually becoming Senior Vice President, overseeing the Global Genomics, Business Unit. During his tenure at Incyte he grew the St. Louis staff to more than 250 people.
Dr. Smoller earned a doctorate degree in Molecular Biology and a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship from Washington University in the Drosophila Genome project and a postdoctoral fellowship at Monsanto Corporation.