Bio-Techne Corp. has named Kim Kelderman to succeed retiring CEO Chuck Kummeth.
Kelderman, who joined Bio-Techne in 2018, has been president of its diagnostics and genomics segment. He will become chief operating officer of the company on Nov. 1 and then CEO on Feb. 1.
Kummeth will transition to senior adviser in February until his full retirement on July 1.
Kummeth announced in August 2022 his plans to retire. He has been CEO since 2013, and during the time the company sales grew from $311 million to $1.1 billion. Bio-Techne also completed 19 acquisitions and saw employment grow from 800 to 3,200 workers.
During that time, a keystone product — the ExoDx Prostate Test — was commercialized, and the spatial biology business doubled revenue. ExoDx is a liquid biopsy test, which is leading Bio-Techne's expansion into diagnostics.
Minneapolis-based Bio-Techne produces proteins and reagents such as antibodies that can be used for research and clinical diagnostics. Those products can be used by a wide range of drug developers.
"Over the last five years, Kim has done an extraordinary job leading Bio-Techne's diagnostics and genomics segment, driving strong growth in our spatial biology and molecular diagnostics businesses," said Robert Baumgartner, the company's board chair, in a statement. "Kim's experience running life science tools businesses with over $1 billion in annual revenue, track record of delivering sustainable growth and driving profitability, as well as his background identifying, executing and integrating M&A transactions will all be critical as Bio-Techne continues to execute its growth strategy going forward."
A Bio-Techne filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicated that Kelderman will receive an annual base salary of $900,000 as CEO.
Alex Nowak, senior research analyst at Minneapolis-based Craig-Hallum Capital Group, said Bio-Techne considered both internal and external candidates for the CEO post.
Investors will be grateful for the news and the resolution of uncertainty about the company's decision, he said.
"The stock has been in a little bit of a holding period," said Nowak. On a down trading day for the markets, Bio-Techne's stock on Thursday closed down 4%.
Nowak said Kelderman has big shoes to fill.
"People very much like Chuck on the investor side," Nowak said.
Bio-Techne's fiscal year 2023 ended June 30. The company reported full year sales of $1.1 billion with a net profit of $285.3 million.
It said that ExoDx sales were up 92% for the year.
