Ex-Agilent executive Philip Binns appointed chair at Lightcast
The board now includes one investor director each from Arch Ventures, Illumina Ventures, M-Ventures, and Longwall Ventures; two independent directors, Kevin Knopp, CEO of 908 Devices, and Kevin Hrusovsky, chairman and former CEO of Quanterix; and observers from OMX Ventures, +ND Capital, and Terra Magnum.
Binns brings decades of experience in scientific instrumentation and leadership to the Cambridge business. He recently served as president of the life sciences and applied markets group at Agilent whom he joined in 2010 through its acquisition of Varian, Inc., where he played a pivotal role in expanding the company's atomic and molecular spectroscopy portfolio into a market-leading business.
In addition to his new role at Lightcast, Binns serves as chair and non-executive director of Epiminder, a Melbourne company developing implantable brain-monitoring devices; as a director of the Bionics Institute, a globally recognised medical device research organisation; and as a National Council Advisor to the Australian Industry AI Group. He holds a degree in business management from the University of Melbourne and an MBA from Melbourne Business School.
"We are thrilled to add Phil to our highly experienced board," said Paul Loeffen, CEO of Lightcast. "His extensive industry expertise and proven leadership will be invaluable as we evolve from a product development-focused company into a fully commercial organisation, expanding our global reach and maximising our impact in the life sciences market."
Binns added: "The Lightcast Envisia™ platform has the potential to transform single-cell analysis by unlocking functional insights that were previously out of reach. The company is at an exciting inflection point, and I'm eager to collaborate with this talented team to support the platform's global adoption and help drive the next generation of biologics and therapies."
While traditional single-cell analysis techniques often rely on genomic data to infer function, the benchtop Envisia platform uses droplet microfluidics to perform highly controlled, sequential single-cell functional assays that capture rich functional data sets to improve decision making.
Built around Lightcast's proprietary light-controlled droplet manipulation technology, the platform enables parallel interrogation of tens of thousands of picoliter-scale droplets, offering unmatched precision and flexibility.
By integrating functional screening early in the antibody discovery process, the Envisia platform allows researchers to select and advance the most promising candidates. It also opens new possibilities in cell-cell interaction studies and broader applications in immunology and oncology.
Lightcast recently announced the limited commercial release of its Envisia benchtop platform. The company is actively collaborating with leading pharmaceutical and academic institutions to validate performance, optimise protocols, and expand application areas.
These efforts will support the full commercial launch of a comprehensive suite of validated protocols later in 2025. The complete Envisia workflow will include advanced instrumentation, intelligent software, a purpose-built cartridge system, and assay kits optimised for a broad range of cell types, assay formats, and research applications.
Founded in 2019, Lightcast has invented a technology that uses rays of light to control picoliter-scale droplets for functional analysis of individual cells. The company has operations in Cambridge, UK and Cambridge, US.