Sciona began on June 8, 2000, the same day as the announcement by President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair of the completion of the first draft of the Human Genome Project. Sciona was founded on a simple premise: to utilize the scientific information uncovered in this landmark study for the benefit of consumers and consumer product companies.

Since that time, Sciona has built a business around the application of evidence-based genetic information for the development of personalized products that help individuals achieve their health goals. In the process, Sciona has established itself as an internationally recognized pioneer and leader in the emerging scientific field of nutrigenetics.

Peter Vitulli, President and Chief Executive Officer
Peter Vitulli has almost 30 years experience within the consumer products industry in both a large corporation and entrepreneurial companies. He currently serves as the President and CEO of Sciona, Inc., a venture capital backed genetics based personal wellness company. Prior to Sciona, he was the President and CEO of Amerifit Nutrition, Inc., a health and wellness company focused on women’s health. Before that he served as the President and CEO of Everfresh Beverages, a private equity backed juice drink company. He spent the first 16 years of his career at the Quaker Oats Company, most recently as President of the North American Gatorade Business, one of the premier functional food products in the world. During his tenure at Quaker, he worked in several divisions including a two year tenure in Quaker’s United Kingdom subsidiary. Peter received his Bachelor’s Degree from Holy Cross College and an MBA from New York University. He serves on the Board of Directors of Sciona and is Chairman of the Board of Efficas, Inc.

Rosalynn Gill, PhD, Chief Science Officer
Rosalynn is one of the founders of Sciona and has led Sciona's R&D efforts from the initial selection of genes through product development and technical sales support. She received her PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, where her work was carried out at MD Anderson and focused on the DNA-damaging effects of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in animal and bacterial models. She went to the UK in 1994 to the Department of Oncology at University College London before co-founding Sciona in 2000.

Board of Directors

Chris Martin, PhD, Chairman of the Board
Chris brings considerable entrepreneurial and international management experience to Sciona. He has a DPhil in chemical engineering from Oxford University, an MBA from IMD, and is a Sainsbury Management Fellow.

Yvonne Engelen, PhD
Yvonne has a M.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Polymer Technology both from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. After a few years as assistant professor at this University, she joined DSM and filled positions in internal R&D management, commercial R&D management and corporate recruitment. Currently, Yvonne is the Investment Manager for DSM's Corporate Venturing group and related to that director or observer in several of this group's portfolio companies.

Peter Feinstein
Peter has been actively involved in the Biotechnology industry since 1981. He is currently a Partner, Managing Director and founder of BioVentures Investors LLC, a venture fund investing in the healthcare sector. He was previously the founder, Chairman and CEO of Feinstein Kean Healthcare in Cambridge, MA, a leading investor relations, marketing and strategic consulting firm serving biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients. Until 1987, he was Vice President Investor relations at Biogen, Inc. Peter is a member of the Board of Directors of BioValve Technologies, Inc. and HospitalCare Online, Inc. He chairs the Leadership Circle at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, is a member of the Board of Advisors Executive Committee of the Harvard-MIT Health Science and Technology Division, and was a founder and executive director of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. Peter received a B.A. degree from New York University.

Keith Gillard
Keith is Principal of BASF Venture Capital America, establishing a new North American investment centre for BASF in the San Francisco Bay Area. For the previous five years, he was with Mitsubishi Corporation, responsible for its technology-related investment and business development activities in Canada, with a specific focus on clean energy and environmental technologies. Keith was the only non-Japanese member of the Mitsubishi Corporation Fuel Cell Business Development Office in Tokyo, and was instrumental in establishing Japanese markets and partners for several Canadian and American cleantech companies. Prior to joining Mitsubishi, Keith began his career in investment banking, structuring mergers and acquisitions as well as technology joint ventures into China. In the late 90's, he had a five-year spell as an entrepreneur in IT, establishing three companies in succession and taking them from business plan through financing to completion of product and exit. Keith currently sits on the boards of Chrysalix Energy Limited Partnerships I and II, Advanced BioNutrition Corp., and Sciona Inc., and is very pleased to be leading BASF's new expanded venture capital efforts in North America.

Robert James, PhD
Rob is a genetics graduate with a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of London. He spent seven years in technology transfer with Cancer Research Ventures (CRV), before joining Prelude in 1998. During his time at CRV he was centrally involved in the assessment, protection and commercial exploitation of intellectual property in cancer therapeutics and diagnostics. Rob is responsible for the life science portfolio. He represents Prelude in the University Companies Association to ensure good links with the UK academic community and he is a member of the British Venture Capital Association High Tech Committee.

Peter Vitulli, President and Chief Executive Officer
Peter Vitulli has almost 30 years experience within the consumer products industry in both a large corporation and entrepreneurial companies. He currently serves as the President and CEO of Sciona, Inc., a venture capital backed genetics based personal wellness company. Prior to Sciona, he was the President and CEO of Amerifit Nutrition, Inc., a health and wellness company focused on women’s health. Before that he served as the President and CEO of Everfresh Beverages, a private equity backed juice drink company. He spent the first 16 years of his career at the Quaker Oats Company, most recently as President of the North American Gatorade Business, one of the premier functional food products in the world. During his tenure at Quaker, he worked in several divisions including a two year tenure in Quaker’s United Kingdom subsidiary. Peter received his Bachelor’s Degree from Holy Cross College and an MBA from New York University. He serves on the Board of Directors of Sciona and is Chairman of the Board of Efficas, Inc.

Roy Whitfield
Roy brings over 20 years of management and governance experience in the biotechnology industry. Most recently, Roy served as CEO and Chairman of Incyte Corporation, a genomics company he co-founded in 1991. Incyte pioneered the commercialization of high throughput and information technology in pharmaceutical and medical research. At Incyte, Roy executed the first genomics initial public offering (IPO) and later raised over $700 million in financing. He received the 1997 Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Life Sciences and the 1996 Best of Biotech Award for Most Creative and Significant Strategic Alliances. Roy's governance experience includes the boards of Incyte Corporation, Nektar Therapeutics, Aurora Biosciences and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). As a Sciona board member, Roy will focus on public policy, intellectual property and business development issues.

Caroline Kovac, Managing Director Venture Group
Dr. Kovac joined Burrill & Company after retiring from IBM, where she was responsible for the strategic direction of IBM's global healthcare and life sciences business. She led a team in developing the latest information technology solutions and services, establishing partnerships and overseeing IBM investment within the healthcare, pharmaceutical and life sciences markets. In more than 20 years at IBM, Dr. Kovac held a number of executive management positions, including vice president at IBM Research, where she was instrumental in launching the Computational Biology Center and the massive Blue Gene supercomputer project. Starting with only two employees as an emerging business unit in the year 2000, Dr. Kovac successfully grew IBM's life sciences business unit into a multi-billion dollar business, and one of IBM's most successful ventures to date with more than 1500 employees worldwide.

Her main focus at Burrill is developing and executing investment strategies for leading edge technologies that are contributing to the transformation of medicine and healthcare including: personalized medicine, the use of IT in healthcare, stem cell research, medical devices and diagnostics, and bio-nanotechnology. In addition, she will work as part of the Burrill International Group team building the company's life science focus on emerging economies such as China, India, Malaysia and the Middle East.