San Diego-based Organovo (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ONVO]]), which specializes in 3D biological printing technology, said Tuesday its board has named Taylor J. Crouch to succeed Keith Murphy as CEO. According to a statement from the company, Murphy, who co-founded Organovo in 2007, is “stepping down as chief executive officer to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities, effective April 21.” He will continue to serve as Organovo board chairman.
Crouch’s prior experience in leading a group of clinical research companies suggests that Organovo is focusing its strategy more specifically on providing 3D-cell cultures to pharmaceutical companies for pre-clinical drug testing. He was previously the CEO of eStudySite—which operates clinical research sites in San Diego, San Francisco, and Las Vegas—from 2009 to mid-2016. Crouch was also executive chairman of Meridien Research from 2013 to 2016, and as a director of the National Research Institute from 2011 through mid-2016.
Before that, Crouch served as a senior vice president of operations at San Diego’s Ligand Pharmaceuticals; as president of Ligand’s international business; as chief operating officer at Discovery Partners International; and as CEO of Variagenics.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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