DETROIT ? Asterand has hired a new president to run the day-to-day operations of the human tissue bank company, tissue that?s used for commercial and academic research into the causes and cures for major diseases.

Martin Stefanelli comes to Asterand with 15 years experience in pathology services, having worked previously at Ameripath where he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and led a team of over 400 scientists and pathologists at more than 200 locations. He?ll also serve as chief operating officer at Asterand.

He replaces former president Edward Dooling who resigned last August for personal reasons.

Stefanelli also held various senior sales and operations positions during a thirteen year tenure at Dianon Systems – an anatomic pathology services company that grew to an organization generating $200 million in revenue.

“I am joining an experienced team of specialists in tissue banking and related services,” Stefanelli said. “They have already trebled revenues every year of the company’s existence. I look forward to helping the Asterand team to maintain this impressive growth and at the same time increase shareholder value.”

Charlton said although Asterand is by comparison a relatively small company with 53 full time employees, the company expects to grow rapidly with Stefanelli’s help.

“We have set ourselves the goal of becoming the world’s leading resource for human tissue-based research and Marty has been appointed to help us achieve this ambitious target,” said Asterand CEO Randal Charlton. “Marty is very familiar with the problems of growth. At Dianon for example, he was part of a management team that grew the company from a start up to over 1000 employees. During one three year period he grew revenues by over 200 percent.

“We are currently dealing with 14 of the world’s top 20 drug discovery companies and expect dramatic growth in the next five years,” Charlton said. “Marty’s experience in building big businesses will be extremely valuable as we scale our operations.”

For more information, click on Asterand.Com